


Drabbles

by tuppenny



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/M, M/M, Some Canon, cursing, mostly from prompts but not always, not in every single one of them but in a few, some not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2019-08-16 17:44:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 23,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16499876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuppenny/pseuds/tuppenny
Summary: Short(ish) stand-alone stories





	1. Thunderstorm (Jack/Kath, Canon Era)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disney asked for Jack/Kath, sentence prompt “We’re in the middle of a thunderstorm and you wanna stop and feel the rain?”
> 
> Canon Era

“Hey, uh, Ace?” 

Katherine turned to look over her shoulder at Jack, who was standing barefoot in the grass, his pants rolled up to the knee, staring uncertainly at the sky. “Yes?” 

“Looks like a storm’s coming.” He nodded up at the dark clouds that were swiftly gathering in the east. “I think we oughta pack up an’ get back to the hotel, yeah?” 

Sighing heavily, she pulled her feet out of the creek and reached for her sandals. She was reluctant to go back inside—she could be indoors in New York City any time she liked, but being outdoors in the fresh air, outdoors in the long grass, outdoors in the quiet? That was a rare treat. Still, Jack was right, so she nodded and rose from the bank. 

“Storms sure come up quick here on the coast,” he said, wrapping the stemware in napkins and placing it back in the hamper as Katherine struggled to slip her wet feet into her shoes. 

“I love them,” she said, giving up on the sandals and kneeling to help him finish cleaning up their picnic. 

“They’re different from the ones at home,” he said thoughtfully, watching the clouds scud across the sky. “Bigger. Fiercer. We’d best get a move on.” He flipped down the top of the hamper and reached for her hand. “Ace?” 

She was still staring at the oncoming storm. “I don’t know, we get some pretty bad ones in the city. But these…” She trailed off, a slow smile spreading across her face. “These are beautiful. Fuller.  _More_.” 

“More ain’t really better when you’re caught out in it,” he reminded her, giving her hand a squeeze. “Let’s go.” 

Katherine squeezed back and, her sandals gripped tightly in her other hand, began walking back across the meadow with him. 

Jack set a brisk pace, but the storm was faster. The sky shifted from bright blue to eerie yellow and then an ominous gray as Katherine’s skirts began to whip around her, her long hair flying into her face and lashing across her shoulders. Her eyes flashed as first crackle of lightning streaked across the sky, and she released his hand to twirl in the fury of it all, grinning at the violent wind and the driving rain to come. Jack sucked in a breath and tried to save his cap from the wind by stuffing it into his back pocket, hunching his shoulders against the heavy gusts. 

“Can ya go any faster, love?” He asked nervously. 

She stopped spinning and staggered a little at the sudden change in momentum, giggling at his slight annoyance. She stopped once she realized he was actually worried, though, and then she ran after him and slipped her arm through his. “Shh, Jacky, sweetheart, we’re fine—we’ll get a little wet, that’s all.”

“Mmm,” he said, unconvinced, and shifted into a jog. The first fat drops of rain fell moments later, and Jack moaned as he felt the cold water start to slick his hair and soak into his shirt. 

“Jack!” Katherine said, tugging at his elbow as thunder rumbled overhead, enveloping them in sound. “Jack, can we—can we just stay here a minute?” 

His eyes bugged out of his head, and the heavens opened. They were soaked in seconds.  **“We’re in the middle of a thunderstorm and you wanna stop and feel the rain?”**

“Please?” She said, tilting her head and pushing her dripping wet bangs out of her face. He frowned. “Oh, come on, Jack—we’re not witches, we won’t melt,” she wheedled, standing on her tiptoes to kiss the scar on his chin. 

“You know I ain’t read that book yet,” he said with a pout, and Katherine grinned. She knew she’d just won. 

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” She said after a moment, blinking to keep the rain out of her eyes and turning slowly to try and catch the next streak of lightning. 

“Yeah,” he said grudgingly, rubbing his hand across his rain-darkened hair, which promptly stuck up at all sorts of odd angles. 

She smiled and began to spin again, holding her arms up to the sky, opening her mouth to let the rain drench every part of her, to cleanse her from the city’s grit and grime, to baptize her in the majesty and power of a summer storm. 

She danced and laughed and looked so gloriously happy that even though Jack was sopping wet, utterly bedraggled, and starting to shiver, he couldn’t help but smile, too. Still holding the picnic basket in one hand, he sank down in the grass and pushed his wet hair out of his eyes, hugging his knees and watching her twirl. “It’s amazing, yeah,” he said to himself, shaking his head at his incomprehensible wife, “But nowhere near as amazing as you, Katherine Kelly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm semi-imagining this as part of their honeymoon in the Growing Together series, but it doesn't have to be read that way.


	2. Wanna Dance? (Jack/Kath Canon Era)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anna asked for Jack/Kath with the sentence prompt "Wanna Dance?"

Even though Jack had had plenty of time to look at Katherine over the last three hours—first during the church service, then while waiting around for various permutations of her family to take an endless series of formal photographs with her, and now at the head table during the lavish dinner paid for by the Pulitzers—he was still completely overwhelmed by the sight of her. That delicate white gown, her cascading auburn curls, the thin gold band on her finger… she was perfect, and now she was his. 

The meal was drawing to a close, and the musicians that the Pulitzers had hired for the event quietly entered the venue and began to set up their stands and assemble their instruments, readying themselves to accompany the wedding guests through a full night of dancing. Jack knew that there weren’t enough of them to make up a full orchestra—outings to the symphony with Katherine had taught him that—but there sure were an awful lot of them. A miniature orchestra, maybe? A kid-sized orchestra? A Lilliputian orchestra? He hadn’t finished Gulliver’s Travels yet, but he and Katherine were making their way through it together. And this afternoon they’d promised to make their way through everything else together, too. He grinned. He was the luckiest man alive, for sure.

As the sound of the not-quite-orchestra began to swell with the hum of tuning instruments, the strings pulling back and forth, the deeper woodwinds racing through scales, the flute shimmering above it all, Jack turned to his bride and held out his hand.  **“Wanna dance?”**

She looked puzzled. “Right now? But they’re not playing music yet.” 

“No,” he agreed, “But I know this is always your favorite part at the symphony, an’ I want our first dance as husband and wife to be to somethin’ you love.” 

Her face softened into a tender expression that she rarely allowed herself to show in public, and he took her hand gently in his. He led her out onto the dance floor and motioned to the musicians to keep tuning, even though he was sure they didn’t need to anymore. He was grateful to the conductor for playing along, though, because the look on Katherine’s face and the love in her eyes had so utterly bewitched him that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep time to a real song just yet. He felt as if he were in a dream, and he was moving through molasses, and every moment that passed was full of a thousand yesterdays and promised a thousand more tomorrows. 

Half-dazed, he placed one hand on her hip and used the other to lead her through slow, gauzy spins and rich, warm waves of sound. She smiled up at him as they danced, her joy so full and transparent that he thought he might dive into it and never resurface. “I love you,” he whispered, his lips dry. 

“I love you, too,” she whispered back, squeezing his hand tightly and leaning to lay her head on his chest. “So much,” she murmured in between his heartbeats. “So very, very much.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fits in my Growing Together series


	3. Baseball (Sprace Modern AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grace asked for Spot/Race with the sentence prompt “Have I entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile for me?” 
> 
> Modern AU
> 
> one or two bad words

Race choked up on the bat and dug his cleats into the dirt. 

Spot slowly raised his glove so that all Race could see of his boyfriend’s face were dark eyes glaring out from under a sweat-stained baseball cap. Spot shifted the ball behind his back a couple of times, finding the seams he needed for his curve. Taking a deep breath, he went through his motion and let the ball fly. As soon as it left his fingers, he knew he’d thrown a strike. He also knew that the bottom would fall out of it right as it crossed the plate, leaving Race stunned. 

Which is exactly what happened. 

Race watched the ball sail by, realizing far too late that he ought to have swung. The ball smacked against the chain link fence behind him, and the rattle jolted him into motion. 

It was just the two of them at practice today—Davey, Jack, and Specs had an after-school lab for AP bio; Crutchie and Kath were scrambling to finish a submission deadline for the yearbook; and Albert, Finch, Romeo, and JoJo were studying for a precalc test that Race would ace without studying and that Spot didn’t mind failing. 

“You got a helluva breaking ball, Spotty,” Race called, picking the baseball out of the dirt and underhanding it back to the mound. 

“Or you got a shitty eye,” Spot said with a smirk. 

Race spat in front of the plate and dug in for the next pitch. This one was a two-seam fastball with good action, and Race whiffed. 

“Swing, batter batter!” Spot taunted, and Race only barely resisted the urge to fire the ball back at the mound instead of going for his usual easy toss. Instead of rocketing a bullet at his boyfriend, he lobbed the ball back to Spot, sent another gob of spit out in front of home plate, and hefted the bat over his shoulder. 

“Let’s go, Racer, c’mon,” he whispered to himself, circling the bat slowly above his shoulders to help him get the timing right. He took one deep breath, then another, and watched Spot start his motion. There’s the leg kick, yup, now watch the angle of his arm, Race, okay, what’s he sending at you this time, and you’ve got this, and should you swing, and then the ball was spinning towards him and Race was rocking back on his right foot and pushing forward and here goes nothing and 

_ SMACK  _

As soon as he felt the jolt of the ball on the bat, Race knew he’d hit a homer. As if in slow-motion, he saw Spot’s eyes widen, his mouth fall open, and his head turn to follow the ball out across the outfield and over the city park fence. 

“Whooooo!” Race yelled, flipping his bat down the third base line and starting to trot towards first base. Spot watched him grimly, one eyebrow raised, arms folded over his chest, clearly thoroughly put out.  _How could I make him madder,_ Race thought—and then he knew. Grinning to himself, he paused and, with a sly look over at Spot, quickly executed a series of back handsprings towards the base. 

“Show off!” Spot shouted, his black look turning even darker. “I blew two right by ya an’ ya didn’t see me doin’ no back walkovers offa the mound, Racer, why ya gotta—” he stopped abruptly and sucked in a breath. 

Race had misjudged the distance to first, meaning that his cleat caught at the edge of the base just as he finished a flip. He yelped and did a glorious faceplant right across the bag, gangly limbs sprawled every which way. 

“Race!” Spot yelled, charging over to first. “Geez, Racer, are you alright? Talk ta me, kid.” 

A little dazed, Race spat out a mouthful of infield dirt and rubbed his head. “Ouch.” 

Spot heaved a sigh of relief and leaned back on his haunches. “Ya big knucklehead,” he said fondly, “Why can’t ya be normal for once in your life?” 

Race shrugged. “Annoyin’ you makes me happy.” 

Spot smiled and socked Race in the shoulder. 

Race winced just for show, and then he looked up at Spot, a wicked gleam entering his eyes.  **“Have I entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile for me?”**  

“Aw, shaddap,” said Spot, his grin widening. “Go finish your homerun trot, idiot.”


	4. The True Meaning of Fear (Sprace, Modern AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grace asked for Spot/Race with the prompt "Things you said when you were scared"
> 
> Modern AU
> 
> one or two curse words

“Raaaaaaaaaaace! Race, help!”

Race’s heart seized at the sound of Spot’s voice. He’d always thought Spot was fearless, but clearly that wasn’t the case. “Coming!” He shouted, dashing to the front room of the beach house they were renting that week on Tybee Island, Georgia. He felt his mouth go dry as he ran into the room, expecting to see… well, he wasn’t sure, exactly. An intruder? A fire? His husband on the floor with a broken leg? He didn’t know, but whatever nightmare scenarios his brain was inventing, they definitely did not include seeing Spot standing on the armchair, arms clenched close to his chest, trembling like a leaf.

Race skidded to a stop, incredibly confused. “Spot?”

“Race!” Spot’s voice was an octave higher than usual, and he was close to hyperventilating.

“What?” Spot didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger, but Race was still on high alert; anything that could rattle Spot had to be pretty bad.

Whimpering slightly, Spot stretched out a shaking hand to point at the opposite wall.

Race squinted. “I… I don’t see anything, Spotty.”

Spot just waved his hand around even more frantically, so Race took another few steps into the room. “You're… scared of that speck of dirt?”

“Glasses, idiot!” Spot said, his words coming out more as a pitiful squeak than as the nasty barb he’d probably meant them to be.

Race frowned and fished his glasses out of his shorts pocket. He blinked a few times and stepped closer to the wall, trying to figure out what the heck…  _Oh_. He burst into laughter. “It’s a cockroach, ya nitwit!  _That’s_  what’s got ya so scared?”

“It’s HUGE!” Spot yelped, still perched on the armchair. “It’s some kind of mutant terrorist bug!”

Race snorted. “We’s in the  _South_ , ya dumb cow.”

“So?”

“Bugs is bigger down here,” Race explained.

Spot frowned. “I don’t care. That thing ain’t normal.”

“It’s perfectly normal, an’ it ain’t gonna hurt ya. Now get down offa that chair, dummy; I don’t wanna lose the security deposit.”

Spot crossed his arms and glared at Race. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere so long’s that monster’s in the room.”

“Suit yourself,” Race said, shrugging and turning to leave.

“Wait!” Spot cried. “Wait, Race, don’t leave me in here with it!”

“Oh my  _gosh_ , Spot, are ya  _kiddin’_  me?”

Spot gave Race his best puppy-dog eyes (and they were good, too; after all, he’d spent years observing Race deploying those baby blues to great effect), and Race sighed. “ _Fine_ , Spot. Fine.”

Spot gave Race a triumphant grin as Race grabbed one of the shoes he’d set by the door, marched over to the cockroach, and smacked it.

“My hero!” Spot said, his voice dropping back into its normal register.

“Yeah, yeah,” Race said, rolling his eyes again and heading outside to scrape the bug guts off of his shoe. “All I have ta say is that you better be offa that chair once I get back in here, ‘cause if you ain’t then I’ll hero your ass all the way back ta New York.”

Spot laughed, and the front door swung shut.


	5. Happy Birthday, Jack (Katherine, Spot, Crutchie friendship, Modern AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pigeon asked for Katherine, Spot, and Crutchie, with the prompt “I’m too sober for this”
> 
> Modern AU
> 
> Cursing

“C’mon, Spot! Just say a few nice words about Jack for his birthday. It’s really not that hard.” 

“It is, though,” Spot grumbled, fidgeting in the empty classroom Katherine had reserved for ‘studying’ but was really using as the top-secret location to film the clips she needed to make Jack a video montage for his 21st birthday. Filming in the dorms or out in public was too risky; you could never be sure where Jack would turn up next. An empty classroom, though? Safe as houses. 

“You’s making this a lot more difficult than it needs to be,” Crutchie commented, slinging his messenger-style bookbag across his chest. “I was in an’ outta here in five minutes.” 

“That’s ‘cause you’s best friends with the idiot in chief,” Spot sniped. 

“Yeah, well, you’ve known him more’n a decade,” Crutchie shot back, “So see if you can’t dredge one nice memory up from that sinkhole you call a brain an’ let Kath move on with her day, yeah?” 

Spot made low, angry noises and plopped down in one of the front-row auditorium-style seats. 

“Just a few nice words, Spot,” Katherine repeated. “You don’t have to say much! I just know it’d mean a lot to Jack if you were in the video, too.” 

** “I’m too sober for this,” **  Spot grumped, crossing his arms and glaring at Katherine and Crutchie. 

“Then do us all a favor an’ pretend you ain’t,” Crutchie said. “Seriously, Spot—bein’ nice f’r once in your life ain’t gonna kill ya.” 

“You don’t know that,” Spot said. “It ain’t like I ever tried it before; why start now?” 

Katherine rolled her eyes. “Spot, my gosh, you could’ve been done with this ages ago if you’d come prepared like I  _asked_  you to!” 

Spot’s glare got even darker. “I  _tried_ , but Race said all my stuff was bad!” 

“For example?” Crutchie said, his curiosity piqued. 

Spot stood slightly to slide his phone out of the pocket of his jeans and then unlocked it to scroll through his notes. “Umm…. Liiiiiike… Oh, here’s one: ‘Happy birthday, Jack, now you’re the biggest  _and_ the oldest idiot I know.’” He looked up at Katherine and Crutchie hopefully, clearly wanting them to find this as funny as he had, rather than just ‘blah and rude’ (Race’s words, not Spot’s). 

“No,” Katherine said, frowning. 

Spot sighed and scrolled a little farther. “How about… ‘Jack Kelly, your name rhymes with Sack Belly, an’ that’s what you’s gonna have in a coupla years if ya keeps eatin’ shit all the time like ya does now, ‘cause you’s gettin’ old, ya fat lump.’” 

“ _That’s_  your idea of a birthday greeting?” Katherine said, horrified. 

Spot shrugged. “I don’t do birthdays.” 

“Or rhymes,” Crutchie scoffed. “Sack Belly? Land sakes, a preschooler could come up with somethin’ better’n that.” 

“Can’t you just… speak from the heart?” Katherine begged. “I know you have one, Spot.” 

“Doubtful,” Crutchie muttered. 

Katherine ignored Crutchie and added, “It’d mean a lot to Jack; it really would.” 

“ _Fine_ ,” Spot said. “Ugh.” 

“Do you… do you want to practice for us first?” Katherine asked, obviously not trusting Spot to come up with anything good on the fly. 

“Nah,” he said, locking his hands behind his head. “I’ll wing it.” 

Crutchie and Katherine exchanged worried looks, but Katherine wanted to get the shot before Spot changed his mind, so she took a deep breath and switched the camera on. “Okay, Spot, whenever you’re ready.” 

“Hi, Jack,” Spot said, looking into the camera and scratching one eyebrow. “It’s, uh, it’s Spot here…” He looked up at Katherine. “I feel dumb, Kath, c’n I leave now?” 

_ “Please?” _

Spot growled. “Fine. Okay. Hi, Jack. Happy birthday, you dumb fuck. I hope you know you’s one of like two people in the world I’d do somethin’ like this for, so, ya know, feel honored an’ whatever. I cares a lot about you, you stupid bastard, so, yeah, I hope this year is a great one for ya. You deserve it. Ain’t nobody who deserves it more’n you, Jackie Boy, an’ I’m lookin’ forward ta seein’ all the great things ya do from here on out. You’s a great friend, an’ thanks for puttin’ up with me. So. Happy happy, shithead.” He raised his eyebrows at Katherine, asking if they were done here, and she switched the camera off. 

“Thanks, Spot,” she said, giving him a genuine smile. “That was perfect.”


	6. Crumbs in the Bed (Platonic Jack & Davey, Modern AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloé asked for a pairing of my choice, “You’re getting crumbs all over my bed”
> 
> Platonic Jack & Davey, Modern AU
> 
> Cursing

_ “Jack!” _  Davey yelled, glaring at his irredeemably messy roommate. 

“What?” 

“You’re getting crumbs all over my bed!” 

“I’m sick!” Jack whined, pushing out his bottom lip, which was speckled with saltine crumbs. 

Davey took note of Jack’s pallor and glassy eyes and figured that Jack was probably telling the truth about being under the weather. That didn’t excuse the crumbs, though. “Look, Jack, I’m sorry that you’re sick, but that still doesn’t explain why you’re eating crackers in my bed. Heck, why are you in my bed at all?” 

“Your bed ain’t in the sunlight like mine is,” Jack said, pulling the covers up higher. “I c’n nap better over here.” 

“Good grief,” Davey said. “So you’ve gotten your sick germs all over my bed  _and_  yours just because you don’t own an eye mask.” 

“Eye—Dave, are ya shittin’ me? Ya think I’m gonna spend money on somethin’ dumb like that?” 

“It’s not dumb, Jack. It means you can nap anywhere.” 

Jack rolled his eyes. “I c’n already nap anywhere.” 

“Then why aren’t you in your own bed?” 

“Because I can’t—” Jack’s phone buzzed. “Oh, hang on!” He grabbed it off of Davey’s nightstand and swiped to see the text. He grinned at the screen and swung his feet out of bed. “It’s Kath!” He said, beaming at Davey. “She wants ta hang out!” 

“If you’re well enough to go meet Kath, then you’re well enough to be napping in your own bed, Jack Kelly,” Davey said, arms crossed. 

“ ‘M feelin’ better,” Jack said with a shrug, popping an aspirin and sniffing at his shirt to see if he needed to change. 

“If you’re well enough to meet Kath, you’re well enough to wash my sheets,” Davey said decisively. 

“What?” 

“You heard me.” 

Jack huffed. “I ain’t washin’ your sheets.” 

Davey stood firm. “You got crumbs all over them. I’m not sleeping in crumbs.” 

“They’s small crumbs, ya won’t hardly notice them.” 

“Are you seriously…Ugh!” Davey gave an inarticulate noise of frustration before walking over and shoving Jack backwards onto the bed. “No. That’s not how it works. If you’re well enough to meet Kath, you’re well enough to wash my sheets, and that’s that.” 

Jack groaned and twisted so he was lying with his head on Davey’s pillows again. “But Daaaaavey, I wanna go see Kath!” 

“Then throw my sheets in the washer.” 

“But I feel sick!” 

“Then don’t go see Kath.” 

“You’s a tyrant,” Jack grumbled, pulling Davey’s comforter back over himself. “You rules over your ill roommate with an iron fist.” 

Davey rolled his eyes. “Sure, whatever. I’m doing you a favor—do you really want to get Kath sick?” 

“Nooooooo,” Jack said, dragging out the word in a reluctant admission that yes, Davey was right. Again. As usual. As always. He tried to cover up a subsequent yawn, but he was too tired to manage it, and his eyes drooped closed. 

“Get some rest, Jack. You can hang out with Kath tomorrow.” 

“ ‘Kay,” Jack mumbled, already falling back asleep, heedless of the saltine crumbs sticking to his abdomen. 

“And you can wash my sheets, too,” Davey said quietly, shaking his head as he left the room, closing the door softly behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This can be set in the Scars series if you want


	7. Head Kisses (Jack/Kath, modern AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disney asked for Jack/Kath head kisses, Hurt/comfort with nightmares, modern

Katherine snapped awake at a sudden flash of pain. What on earth—oh. She whimpered as she felt another fist slam into her back, and she began to disentangle her legs from the covers to slip out of bed. She was too slow to escape the next punch, though, and this time she yelped; he’d socked her close enough to her kidney that tears sprang to her eyes. “Jack!” She shouted, tumbling out of the bed and dragging half of the blankets with her. “Jack, stop, you have to stop!”

She laid on the floor for a moment, trying to catch her breath and orient herself, listening to the thrashing and moaning noises coming from the bed. It was just going to be one of those nights, then, wasn’t it.… 

She inhaled deeply and braced herself for what she had to do next. “Jack,” she said again, pulling herself to her feet and crossing to the other side of the bed, the side where his fists currently weren’t.  “Jack. Wake up.” He flipped immediately to face her, and her reflexes, still slow from sleep, kept her right in range for the next blow, which caught her in the throat.

Katherine’s eyes widened and she doubled over, gasping and choking, falling onto the bed and wheezing for air. Her panicked noises did what her words could not—Jack’s eyes snapped open, and it took him only seconds to register what had happened. “Ace!” He keened, his hands flying to comfort her, freezing in midair as she flinched. “Oh, Ace,” he said, his voice rough with sleep and shame. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, I’m so sorry, I…” He sat up helplessly as she waved him off and made strangled, squeaking, coughing sounds, blinking and shuddering until she finally felt in control of herself again.

“It’s okay,” she rasped, rubbing her throat. “It’s fine.”

“No,” he said, stretching a tentative hand back out to her, “It’s not, I—”

“Jack,” she said, lifting her head and glaring at him. “Stop it. It’s fine. Really.” She sat down on the bed and rubbed his leg. “What’s wrong, love?”

He squeezed his eyes shut and hung his head. “Nightmare.”

“I know,” she said gently, scooting higher up the bed and leaning in to kiss his tousled hair. “But do you want to talk about it?”

“It was you,” he said, meeting her gaze. “Someone was… these people, they… they were trying to take you.”

“I swear it’s a safe assignment,” she said, wrapping her arms around him. “They won’t hurt a Western journalist, baby.”

He collapsed against her and dry-sobbed into her chest, his bare, sweaty skin sticking to the fabric of her summer nightgown. “I’m so scared,” he said, able to admit it only because it was the witching hour, when things were more dream than reality.

“I know,” she said. “But it’s the local journalists who are in danger, love; not me.” He began to tremble involuntarily, and she pulled him in tighter, rocking him side to side. “That’s why I have to go,” she added, dropping her head slightly in order to kiss his hair again. “I have to try to help.” Jack nodded, his unruly half-curls tickling Katherine’s nose. She laid her cheek atop his head, still rocking him slowly. “I’m going to be fine, sweet boy,” she said, sighing as she felt his racing heartbeat hammering away.

“That’s not good enough, Ace—you have to promise,” he said, his voice cracking. “Promise you’ll come home to me.”

“I promise,” she said without hesitation, rubbing circles in the sweaty skin of his back. “I’ll always come home to you, Jack. Always. I swear.”

He sighed and nuzzled in closer, still shaky. She rocked and hummed and pressed kisses to his hair, knowing that she’d made a promise she might not be allowed to keep. He knew that, too. But they also knew that she’d keep it for as long as she had any say in it, and although that wasn’t a perfect reassurance, it had to be enough. Because it was as good as they could have.

“Okay,” he managed eventually, not completely fine but starting to feel sleepy again. “I think… I think we can lie back down, but…” He drew a ragged breath, counted to seven, and exhaled slowly. “Could you… can we cuddle?”

“Of course,” Katherine said, easing him down onto his pillow and fitting her head beneath his chin. She felt his lips press softly against her hair as he settled into the mattress, fidgeting until he found the perfect spot and began to drift off. “Sleep tight, baby,” Katherine whispered, listening to his even breathing. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This could also be set in the Scars AU if you want


	8. Spilled Milk (Platonic Jack and Davey, Modern AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grace asked for Jack and Davey friendship, “Hey, have you seen the..? Oh.”

Jack pulled the Cheerios out of the pantry and set them next to the plastic Dora the Explorer bowl that JoJo had given him for his birthday last year. He had a matching set of cups somewhere, too, because that’s what happens when your birthday falls a week before you move into your first apartment with your most mature friend, and the rest of your friends (the ridiculous ones, the ones who still have to be supervised when out in public, the ones who think they’re oh so clever) all coordinate on your presents and decide to furnish your apartment for you. With stuff from the dollar store. Without consulting either you or your roommate.

He tugged the fridge open and hunted around for the milk. It was usually right there on the door, in between Davey’s nasty pulpy orange juice and the Hershey’s chocolate syrup that Jack had bought while feeling nostalgic, but it wasn’t there today. He scratched his head, still a little sleep-dazed, and then remembered he had a roommate. A roommate who also ate breakfast. Duh, Jack. 

He picked up his food and shuffled to the kitchen table, calling out to Davey,  **“Hey, have you seen the…? Oh.”**

Davey was standing in the middle of the breakfast nook, staring down at an explosion of milk. It looked like the entire carton was either splattered across the floor or dripping down the front of Davey’s pajamas, and Jack wondered how bad cereal would taste if you ate it in coffee. Or water. Or anything but pulpy orange juice. 

Jack cleared his throat. “So, Dave, what happened here?” 

Davey raised his head slowly, meeting Jack’s eyes with an agonized expression on his face. And Jack didn’t mean to, he really didn’t, and he tried not to, and he felt a little bad about it, but he couldn’t stop himself from bursting into laughter, because Davey had milk all over his face, too. There were drops of milk clinging to his hair, running down his cheeks, collecting at the tip of his nose—it was too much to take stoically. 

Jack set his cereal down on the counter and howled with laughter, wiping his eyes as the tears began to stream. Davey blinked rapidly, reddened, started to say something, and then he collapsed into laughter, too. The two of them snickered so long that their stomachs hurt and they could hardly breathe, and although they tried to collect themselves, they’d fall apart again as soon as they made eye contact. 

Eventually, Jack managed to grab a dishtowel (it was the one that said “Lordy, Lordy, Look Who’s Forty!”– a birthday gift from Albert) and toss it to Davey, who mopped his face off and then started on the floor. “Thanks, Jack. I’ll pick some more milk up after work.”


	9. Painting Eggs (Platonic Jack, Davey, Les. Canon Era)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One of my tumblr pals asked for something Eastery. 
> 
> Jack, Davey, Les friendship. Other selected newsies. Canon Era, post-strike. 
> 
> Can precede my Growing Together series if you'd like.

Jack had invited Davey and Les over to decorate Easter eggs, and even though the Jacobs boys were Jewish, their parents had okayed the excursion, saying that they liked that their sons had such kind friends and that it was good to learn about other people’s beliefs and traditions. Jack had lit up when David said yes, they’d come, and Crutchie had grinned and socked Jack in the shoulder, saying the Jacobs boys were in for a treat, because Jack spent weeks every year planning out the scene he’d draw on his egg, and of course they were always masterpieces, so they’d better be ready.

It had sounded like fun, but, upon realizing he’d gotten himself into something he knew nothing about, Davey wondered if it might have been better to just stay home.

“Okay, Davey, ‘s real simple,” Jack said, pulling out the basket of eggs he’d hardboiled and dyed the night before. “All ya do is take a pin an’ scratch off the ink. Like this, see?” He rubbed at the dark red onionskin dye with the point of a pin that he’d whipped out of the hem of his sleeve.

“But what do I draw?” Davey asked, holding an egg gingerly in his hand.

“Whatever ya wants,” Jack said with a shrug. “Heya, boys!” He poked his head out of the kitchen and hollered up the Lodging House stairs. “If ya wanna decorate an egg, come an’ grab it!” The pounding of dozens of sets of feet echoed down the stairwell, and Jack slipped back into the kitchen to avoid the rush of newsies flooding the hallway.

“I’s gonna draw me a leg o’ lamb!” Albert said, fishing in the basket for the largest egg he could find.

“Ain’t that kinda… wrong?” JoJo asked, blinking up from his spot on the kitchen bench, where he was already hard at work writing his abominably long full name on his egg (to make sure that no one stole it). “I mean, Easter’s about the Lamb o’ God an’ all that,” he said. “Seems like ya shouldn’t be drawin’ just… one… lamb leg?”

“Hey, the Bible’s real specific about how they din’t break Christ’s legs when he were on the cross,” Jack chipped in, “So if Al wants ta draw him a leg o’ the lamb? Or even two? Seems fittin’.” Davey raised an eyebrow at Jack, who shot him a look. “What? Last name like mine, ya think I ain’t never been in a church?” Davey conceded the point with a silent laugh, and Jack returned to his artwork.

“I said leg o’ lamb, not leg o’  _the_  lamb,” Albert grumbled, although no one was paying attention to him anymore.

“Davey!” Les chirped, waving at his older brother from a different table, where he was sandwiched in between Crutchie and Elmer. “Look what I made!”

Davey laid his own egg on the table and went to investigate, frowning as he brought the egg closer to his face. “ _Nu_ , Leyzl—what is it?”

“It’s us!” Les said brightly, pointing at the scribbly stick figures. “There’s you wearing your tie, an’ that’s Jack wavin’ a paper, an’ Crutchie’s standin’ next to me!”

“It’s great,” Davey said. “I see it now. Mama’s going to love it, Leyzele.”

Les bit his lip and slid off the bench to whisper in Davey’s ear. “Actually,” he said, his breath hot and spitty, “I wanted to give it to Jack. Do you think… do you think he’d mind? Do you think Mama’d be sad?”

“He’d love it,” Davey said, giving Les a reassuring smile and ruffling his brother’s hair. “And Mama wouldn’t be sad; she’d be proud of you for sharing. I think you should give it to him right now.”

“There’s too many people here,” Les said, flushing. Everyone knew that Jack was Les’ hero, of course, but Les didn’t  _know_ that they knew that, and he wanted to be discreet. Or at least as discreet as a ten-year-old could be.

“Okay,” Davey said, nodding. “Come help me with mine, then?”

“Yeah!”

Les squeezed in between Jack and Davey on the kitchen table bench and whipped out the pin that Crutchie had loaned him, scratching it intently against Davey’s egg. “You haven’t even written your name on it, David!” Les scolded. “How’s we s’posed to know it’s yours!”

“Yeah, Dave,” Jack said, looking up from the intricate patterns he was creating. “Could be anyone’s. Gotta put your artist’s mark on there ta claim it!”

“My what?”

“Your John Hancock, idiot,” Jack said, returning to his work. “Or a symbol to show ev’ryone it’s yours.”

“I wrote my name on mine, see?” Les said, shoving his Easter egg back in Davey’s face.

“An’ I skritched my initials down here,” Jack said, pointing to the bottom of his egg.

“Okay, okay,” Davey said, “Les, put whatever you want. I don’t care.”

“I’m gonna draw you a symbol, then,” Les said, sticking his tongue out in concentration. “Like Jack said.”

“Oh? And what symbol would that be?” Davey leaned forward, trying to figure out what Les was doing. It was a… block? A square?

“A book!” Les said triumphantly. “You’s always got your nose in one of ‘em—ev’ryone’s gonna know ‘s yours right ‘way!”

“ _You’ve_ , not you’s,” Davey said absently, trying to think of small patterns to etch onto the egg that Les was rapidly filling with wildly disproportional dogs, automobiles, and horses.

As time went on, the other newsies melted away. Most of them had very little patience for decorating eggs, and they’d contributed to the pot only because they knew they’d get a fresh hardboiled egg out of it. Eventually Les, Davey, and Jack were the only ones in the kitchen, and it wasn’t until Jack put the finishing touches on his masterpiece—an intricate cityscape with a stylized pattern of clouds—that Les felt brave enough to give Jack his gift.

“Here,” Les said shyly, shoving his Easter egg at Jack. “ ‘S for you.”

Jack drew his brows together. “Thanks, Les, but I can’t; you need all the food you c’n get,” he said. He took in the crestfallen look on Les’ face and added, “Don’t get me wrong, kid—‘s real nice of ya, an’ ya done a beautiful job with it—I just don’t wanna see ya givin’ up a meal.”

“But I made it for you,” Les insisted, holding it out in front of Jack’s face. “Look, Jack—it’s me an’ you sellin’ papes with David an’ Crutchie, see?”

David gave Jack a meaningful look behind Les’ head, and Jack relented, his face softening. “Why, so it is,” he said, taking the egg from Les’ hands and studying it more closely. “An’ look, I’m wavin’ the mornin’ edition just the way I always do!” He grinned at Les, who beamed back. “Thanks, shortstop,” Jack said, pulling Les in for a hug. “I love it.” He took a moment to muss up the smaller boy’s hair and then ended their embrace, saying, “Well, that’s perfect, actually, ‘cause this one right here? It’s for you.” He reached for his own, beautifully decorated egg and offered it to Les.

Les’ jaw dropped. “Oh, Jack,” he breathed. “You can’t. It’s too beautiful. You have to keep it!”

“Pshh, I c’n make me another one lickety-split,” Jack said, even though David knew that eggs were a luxury for the newsies, that Jack had been planning this egg for weeks, and that the fearless strike leader had just spent the past two hours turning the image in his head into reality. “Go on, squirt.” Les hesitated, and Jack nudged him gently. “I wantcha ta have it. For real.”

“It’s…  _thank_  you,” Les said fervently, cradling the egg like he was afraid that the merest brush of his skin against its shell would cause it to shatter.

“Ya gotta promise ta eat it, though,” Jack said sternly. “Eggs go bad.”

“I couldn’t!” Les said, scandalized.

“Ya hafta,” Jack said, holding firm. “Or it’ll rot, an’ your last mem’ry of it ‘ll be of it stinkin’ up your house ‘stead of sittin’ nice an’  _geschmak_  in your belly.”

Les nodded, and Davey’s eyes widened. “Did you just… was that Yiddish?”

Jack grinned. “Happy Pesach, Davey-boy. Figured it was only right I learn a coupla things about your world an’ your holiday, seein’ as you came ta do Good Friday with me.”

“Happy Easter, Jack,” Davey said, grinning. “Enjoy eating that egg.” 


	10. Start Yelling (Platonic Davey & Kath, Canon Era)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grace asked for Davey & Kath bonding. Canon Era. Fits in my All Ways series.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fits in my "All Ways" series. Might be moved over there later. 
> 
> Davey is 34, Les is 28, Herbert (Katherine’s youngest brother) is 21. Davey is married to Chaya, and they have two children: Miriam (age 5) and Asher (age 3).
> 
> Davey works for the Anti-Defamation League, which was founded in October 1913.
> 
> Sheket Bevakasha = Be quiet (Hebrew)  
> Neshama = soul, Hebrew term of endearment  
> Du farkirtst mir di yorn = You’re going to be the death of me (Yiddish); I took my best guess at the plural of this based on some quick googling and my German knowledge  
> Zol zein stil = Be quiet (Yiddish)  
> Kinderlach = Term of endearment for children (Yiddish)

 

** August 1918 **

“Stop it, Asher! Ugh, get  _off!”_ Five-year-old Miriam was tugging at her teddy bear, which her three-year-old brother had decided to sit on. “Get off, get  _off,_ you’re  _smushing_ him! He can’t breathe!”

Asher swatted at Miriam’s hands and refused to budge, prompting another round of yells from his sister. “Asher, you’re hurting Bear! Get  _off_ of him!” Asher laughed as she jerked once more at her teddy’s leg, enjoying his sister’s frustration. And then came the sickening sound of torn cloth. Both Miriam and Asher stared at the ripped leg in her hands and the kapok stuffing that was spilling all over the floor, and for a moment the apartment was mercifully quiet.

Then Miriam shrieked. “Look what you did! You broke him! You  _broke_ him!” She began to cry, dropped the leg, and shoved Asher so hard that he toppled sideways into the edge of the metal bed that he shared with his sister. A furious Miriam grabbed the remains of her teddy bear and clutched them to her chest. Heedless of Asher’s howls, she stood up to scream at him some more. “I hate you, Asher! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! You broke Bear!”

Asher threw himself on the floor and wailed in pain, and Miriam ran across the one-room apartment to her father, who was trying desperately—and fruitlessly—to work on a legal brief. “Tatty, Asher broke Bear!” She cried, brandishing her toy at Davey. “Look, Tatty, look what he  _did!”_

Not wanting Davey to hear a skewed version of the truth, Asher scrambled to his feet and raced to his father’s side. “Mimi pushed me, Tatty, she pushed me, an’—”

“Sheket bevakasha!”

Both children snapped their mouths shut at their father’s command and the obvious anger in his voice.

“I told you two to play nicely with each other, and what do you do? Asher breaks his sister’s favorite toy, and Miriam breaks her brother’s head! I am  _working_ , I need  _quiet!”_

The children were momentarily chastened, but then they made eye contact with each other, and that set them off again.

“You broke Bear!”

“You pushed me!”

“But you—”

“No, you—”

David slammed his hands on the desk and yelled. “ _Ir farkirt mir di yorn!_ Heaven forbid I try to actually get some work done around here, heaven forbid you two give me a minute’s quiet, heaven forbid I have  _well-behaved_ children!” He scraped his chair back and stood, looming over his small progeny. “Bed! Now!”

“But Tatty—”

“Bed!” Davey barked, pointing to the other side of the room. “And  _zolt zein stil!”_

The children closed their mouths in obedience and hung their heads as they crawled miserably into bed. They kicked at each other under the blankets until Davey raised his head to glare at them, and then they stopped even that, knowing better than to test their father.

Chaya came home shortly after, her arms full with the week’s shopping, and raised her eyebrows at the sight of her children already in bed. “Tired already,  _kinderlach?”_

Miriam and Asher looked warily at their father, who was bent over his work again, before shaking their heads in unison. Chaya frowned slightly. “Dovid? Why are the children in bed?”

Davey groaned and pressed his hands to his head. “I’m  _working,_  Chaya.”

“You agreed to watch the children while I was out.”

“This case is important,” he objected, rubbing his temples and refusing to face her.

“More important than your family?”

“Don’t—” he began, leaping to his feet, his eyes blazing. He caught himself in time, though, and settled for gripping the back of his chair and clenching his jaw so tightly that it hurt. He stared at his wife for a moment, flicked his eyes over to his children, and shook himself. “I’m going for a walk,” he said brusquely, striding to the door and grabbing his keys. “Don’t wait up.”

*

Chaya was, of course, awake when David returned. He was relieved; once he’d started walking and begun to cool off, he’d regretted his sharp words. He and Chaya had promised each other on their wedding night that they’d never go to bed angry, and although some of their youthful vows had proved overly starry-eyed, this was one they’d clung to and fought for.

It was dark in the apartment, with Chaya already in her thin summer nightgown, lying in bed and simply staring at the ceiling. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, Davey smiled at the sight of her like that. They both needed quiet time, and since Chaya got less of that than he did, what with their two little ones constantly underfoot, she reserved these moments before sleep for silence, prayer, and contemplation. He loved watching her think, seeing her mind whirring away behind her beautiful eyes, eyes so brown they were nearly black, eyes that registered and analyzed and catalogued people the way his eyes processed case law and depositions. She was brilliant, his wife, and he was lucky to have found her.

“Chayele?” He said, his voice low so as not to wake the children in the other bed. “I’m sorry.”

She didn’t respond immediately, needing a moment to finish her private thought, or petition, or praise, but then she turned to watch him as he loosened his tie and began to dress for bed. “I forgive you,” she said, and that was that.

He crawled into bed next to her and ran his hand down her bare arm, slender but strong from the work she did raising their children and running their household. She smiled and closed her eyes, enjoying his light touch and grateful that they were both content to leave things there on this hot summer night. He smiled, too, and they drifted off to sleep.

*

David woke to a sick feeling in his stomach. He knew that if he didn’t leave for work as soon as possible, he would snap at his family all over again, and he didn’t want that. It wasn’t their fault, this weight on his heart, but he didn’t feel ready to share it, either. He dressed hurriedly, trying not to notice how tentative and quiet his children were being around him, and slipped out of the apartment with barely a look for Chaya.

His worry didn’t lift at work, but it did recede. And until he figured this out, work was better than home. Work was an escape. Work kept his mind humming away, allowing him to bury his fear underneath layers of convoluted legal jargon and the sense of purpose that spurred him on even on days like this, even on the most sickening cases, even on the projects that made him regret bringing children into a world where these things happened, where the names Asher and Miriam would put targets on their backs, where his daughter’s curly hair and his son’s dark eyes would draw sideways glances and acerbic remarks, where, no matter how hard he worked to change this country for them, they would never walk as freely as Jack’s children, or Albert’s, or Elmer’s….

He shook his head violently and refocused himself on his work. He would not think about his family. He would not think about his children. He would not think about his country and its grasping hands. He was at work, so he would think about work. He would think about work, about words and logic and arguments, about how to win this case. Win this case, David. Focus on that.

*

“I talked to your mother today,” Chaya said when he came home. She had ushered the children over to the far side of the room and pulled him out onto the fire escape, which is where they had all of their serious conversations when Miriam and Asher were awake.

He blanched and moved to reenter the apartment, but Chaya gripped his upper arm and forced him to stay.

“You’re worried about Les, aren’t you,” she asked, although it wasn’t a question. “That’s why you’ve been on edge.”

“Yes,” he said, meeting her eyes before shifting his gaze away, out over the maze of tenement streets.

“Go talk to Katherine,” she said. “Now.”

“Now?” He raised an eyebrow. “She’ll be busy.”

“Jack can handle the children. You need her more tonight. He’ll understand.”

“He has four,” David said wryly. “We have our hands full with two, Chaitse, and four is harder than two, especially at bedtime.”

“You’re making excuses,” Chaya said, unruffled. “Eleanor thrives on responsibility.” Chaya’s lips quirked slightly at the thought of nine-year-old Eleanor Kelly. That girl had more chutzpah than her parents knew what to do with. Despite being lamentably short, far from the oldest of the (ex-)newsies’ children, and female, to boot, Ellie was so bossy and cocksure that she was the undisputed leader of the entire extended passel of kids. It was quite remarkable, really, seeing her scold Albert’s incorrigible twins into behaving or lecturing Finch’s son into using proper table manners.

Yes, Eleanor Kelly was a force to be reckoned with and as stubborn as sin, but she was a formidable ally, too, if you could persuade her to cooperate. Whenever Jack and Katherine needed their children to fall in line, all they had to do was win over Eleanor. Sometimes that was easier said than done, of course, but for something like bedtime it would be easy enough. After all, she liked being in charge.

Chaya gave Davey another verbal nudge. “Jack will need to take care of Nicky, and Ellie will handle the rest.” She squeezed his arm gently. “Go see Katherine, Dovid. You need to handle this, neshama, and you need to handle it soon, because we can’t spend the entirety of Les’ basic training and deployment tiptoeing around you.”

Davey closed his eyes and took a deep breath before nodding. “Okay. You’re right.”

Chaya ran her thumb gently down his cheek. “Go on, then. I’ll put the children to bed. Stay out as long as you need.”  

David pressed a warm hand to the side of her face and left the apartment, his brisk stride taking him out of the tenements and into the cleaner, quieter streets where Jack and Katherine lived.

*  
Davey looked across the tram to Katherine, who was sitting opposite him. “Where are we going, anyway?”

“I’m surprised it took you this long to ask,” she said with a smile.

He shrugged. “I’ve been finding it hard to care about things lately.”

“I know the feeling,” she said, huffing a laugh. She readjusted her skirts and said, “We’re going to the Palisades.”

“What?” He started from his seat. “Why? There’s nothing there! It’s almost not even in the city anymore! We won’t get back until after midnight!”

Katherine raised her hands in a calming gesture and said, “I’ll pay for the transit, don’t worry. And trust me, this is the best place and the best time to go. I’ve done this plenty of times before; it’s perfectly safe. And yes, it’ll be a long night, but it’ll be worth it, I promise.”

David frowned, trying to decide if he wanted to go along with this or not. Eventually he shrugged, closed his eyes, and leaned back in his seat. He’d nap on the way to make up for the sleep he’d be losing later. Katherine could wake him when they got there.

*

By the time they arrived at the station, it was pitch black and completely deserted. The night was warm, but Davey shivered; he wasn’t sure he’d ever been somewhere so quiet and empty.

“We’re heading to the cliffs,” Katherine said, completely at ease, leading the way down.

Davey shot her an uncertain look, forgetting she couldn’t see his expression in the darkness.

“I wish I could tell you Les is going to be fine, but of course I can’t,” Katherine said, her tone entirely matter-of-fact. “Herbert is, so far. We get the occasional letter from Europe, though the censors black out half of what he says.” She sighed and took the lefthand fork in the pathway. “It’s hard, Davey. It settles into an ache after a while, though, like a tooth that needs pulling. There’s this constant underlying pain, but mostly you can ignore it… and then, out of nowhere, the pain flares and you’re screaming at how much it hurts.”

David shook his head. “He’s been so eager to go, but….”

“But you know he’s being an idiot?”

Davey snorted. “Yeah.”

“Herbert, too,” Katherine said. “He was so sad he just missed being old enough for the first draft, and then he was elated when they called him up immediately after the second. Mama cried her eyes out.”

“Mine did, too,” Davey said, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. “I can’t seem to, though. It’s been a week since we heard, and not even a sniffle.”

“You don’t have to cry,” Katherine said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve never been one for tears; In all the years I’ve known you, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you cry, actually.”

David gave a wry smile. “I’m not sure anyone has. Not since I was a kid, anyway.”

“Well, then,” Katherine said, “You can hardly expect yourself to start now. We’re here, by the way,” she added, almost as an afterthought.

“I don’t see anything,” David said, meaning that he didn’t see anything unusual, but… it was pretty dark out here, too. In fact, he was having trouble seeing anything beyond the nose on his face.

“We’re close to the edge of the cliffs,” Katherine said, fussing with her hair. “The moon’ll be out soon, and then you’ll be able to see for yourself. But we don’t need it to be pitch black for what we’re doing; we can start now,” she said, her eyes sparkling in the dim light.

“Stop being so mysterious,” Davey complained. “Start what?”

“Start yelling,” she said, her voice full of mischief.

“What?”

“Go on, scream,” she said, waving a hand out over the cliffs and the river below.

Davey took in the drop, which was finally visible now that the clouds had shifted. “We really are the only ones out here, aren’t we.”

“Yep,” Katherine said. “It’s the perfect time and place to come let off a little steam.” She took a step closer to the edge and said, “Here, I’ll go first, since you’re clearly reluctant.”

She let out a piercing cry that echoed off the water and hung in the air, silencing the crickets and leaving everything even quieter than before.

Davey found himself breaking into a grin. “Amazing.”

Katherine grinned back. “Your turn.”

He licked his lips, took a deep breath, and bellowed out over the Palisades. He screamed for what felt like an eternity, giving a sound to his fury and fear, letting the hills and trees and emptiness hear everything that had been hammering away in his chest since Les’ draft letter had arrived. His lungs ran out eventually, though, and he bent over with his hands on his knees, gasping for air.

“Impressive,” Katherine said, her arms crossed. “How do you feel?”

He straightened up slowly, blinked, and cocked his head. “Better,” he said, the surprise evident in his voice. “I… I actually feel better.” Katherine smiled, and Davey shook his head in wonderment. “You said you do this often?”

“About once or twice a month,” she said, slapping at a mosquito on her arm. “Crying helps, too, but I don’t like doing that when the children are home. This has been a godsend.”

“I feel like…” Davey gave a laugh. “Well, I’m not sure what I feel like, but honestly, the fact that I feel anything at all is a small miracle.”

“Come whenever you like,” Katherine said, extending her arms wide. “The Palisades are always happy to listen.”

“Thanks, Kath,” Davey said, unable to find the right words but hoping she’d understand anyway.

“My pleasure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first draft for WWI was June 5, 1917, for all men aged 21-30. The second was June 5, 1918, and included men who turned 21 after the first draft. I don’t know if Herbert Pulitzer was drafted or served in WWI, but it’s quite likely, given that he would have been an unmarried man with no dependents, and that was the first category of men who were called up.


	11. My Fairytale Ending (Jack/Kath, Canon Era)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Birthday Present written for Disney. 
> 
> Jack/Kath, Canon Era

Jack stumbled into the bedroom and crawled back onto the right side of the mattress, groping for the edge of the topsheet. He pulled it up to his chin and settled in, too tired even to hug Katherine close the way he usually did when returning from soothing one of their children after a nightmare. He was just drifting off to sleep when he heard a sleepy mumble behind him and then the soft brush of fingertips across his bare shoulder.

“Jackie?”

He hummed in response and lifted his head slightly to brush his stubbled chin across his wife’s fingers. Then came the press of Katherine’s nose against the nape of his neck and the gentle ghost of her lips on his tanned skin.

“You’re my fairytale ending,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around him and scooting so she was flush against his back. “Did you know that?”

He moved his hands to rest loosely on her forearms and rubbed his thumbs back and forth, back and forth, the easy motion starting to lull both of them back to sleep. “Mmm,” he said, and raised one of her hands to his lips to kiss it.

“I love you,” she sighed, tracing a finger along the spread of his smile. “So much.”

“My Ace,” he murmured, his voice faint and dreamy. “My love.”

“Mhmm,” she said, her voice growing fuzzier, too. “For sure.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This could be set in my Growing Together series if you wanted.


	12. Stuck With Me (Davey/Chaya, Canon Era)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mirkwoodsguardian asked Davey & Chaya for a 3 sentence fic (and I love them forever for it). Fits in my All Ways series.

Davey tugged Chaya in close and wound his fingers through her thick, curly hair, tilting her head gently back so he could kiss his way across her jaw and down her neck. The two of them tried to jump apart as they heard Les climbing up the ladder to the rooftop (Les was always humming and therefore easily identified from far away), but, to Chaya’s amusement and Davey’s dismay, Davey found that they couldn’t– his hands were caught in her tangled curls. “Sorry,” Chaya said, her eyes twinkling, “I guess you’re stuck with me forever now.”


	13. Going Far (Davey/Chaya, Miriam. Canon Era)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disney asked for a quiet day with Davey, Chaya, and Miriam. Fits in my All Ways series. Might be moved over there eventually. Canon Era.

Chaya adjusted the shopping bags in her hands and paused. She could hear both David and Miriam making sounds inside the apartment, although the words were indistinct. She smiled, glad that they were getting along, and then pressed her ear against the door, hoping to learn what they got up to when she wasn’t around.

“…and then Chaya—that’s your mama, Mirele—oh, I suppose I should call her Mama so that you don’t get confused, hmm? Okay. Well, so your mama looks him dead in the eye, switches to English, and rattles off the most creative set of insults I’ve ever heard. And I’ve heard some good ones,  _zissele_ , I can promise you that. I’m sure you will, too, with all of your wild uncles hanging about, and just wait until you hear your Uncle Sean—good  _grief_ —but trust me, your mama has a mouth on her like you wouldn’t believe. You wouldn’t think it, but—”

David paused as Miriam babbled some nonsense sounds.

“What’s that? Oh, really? Well, I suppose you’re right. It’s not her mouth so much as her brain. Whip-smart, your mama. That woman knows words, and she knows how to use them. And you know what? That man just stood there and took it. He was too shocked to do anything else! It was wonderful, Mirele—he looked at her like she’d grown ten feet tall and he was a bug just waiting to be squashed. Marvelous. And as soon as she’d finished, he handed her the box, doffed his hat, and apologized. He  _apologized,_  Miri! To your mama! Unbelievable, I tell you. Just fantastic.”

Miriam grunted.

“Hmm? Oh, I know. I agree. It’s a skill worth having, there’s no doubt about that.”

Miriam squeaked.

“Oh, of course! I’m sure she’ll teach you if you ask nicely.”

Chaya put her hand on the doorknob, but she stopped when she heard Davey start talking again.

“What’s that now? You want your rattle? Well, you’re gonna have to stretch for it,  _ketseleh_ —that’s why you’re on the floor to start with, you know. Dr. Couney said we had to work on strengthening your muscles, little one.”

Chaya smiled and finally entered the apartment, where her husband and her baby were lying on the floor on their stomachs, waiting for her to return from the market. Miriam was frantically kicking her limbs around like an upended turtle, and David was resting his head on his crossed arms, beaming into his daughter’s face.

“Hello, my loves,” Chaya said, crossing the room to set the groceries on the counter and then kneeling down between Davey and Miriam.

“Chayele!” Davey grinned, raising his head slightly to look at his wife. “Miri’s been doing this almost since you left—look at her go!”

“She’s not going anywhere, Dovid,” Chaya pointed out, clearly amused.

“No, but she thinks she is,” David said fondly, holding out a finger to Miriam, who quickly grabbed it and drew Davey into her wild arm motions.

“Our little explorer,” Chaya cooed, squatting down to run her hand along Miriam’s back. “You’re going to see the world someday,  _faygele_.”

“You’re going to go so far, darling,” Davey echoed, dropping his head back down to be level with Miriam’s.

“So, so far,” Chaya told her daughter. “Just like your father.” She placed a gentle hand on David’s shoulder and squeezed slightly.

“What?” Davey said, his eyebrows knitting together as he looked up again. “Me, going far? Chaya, I’ve never even left New York City! You’re the one who’s crossed an ocean.”

“And you’re the one who graduated from university and law school,” she scolded. “You look where we both came from,  _b’shert_ , and tell me again that you haven’t gone far, hmm?”

David’s face shifted from surprise to pure adoration, and his lips spread into a brilliant smile. “You’re a wonder,” he said, tugging at a tightly-coiled ringlet that was hanging by her temple. “And together we’ll go farther still.” 

 


	14. Punk!Davey (Davey/Chaya, Modern AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloé and Disney asked for Punk!Davey. I don't even know if this qualifies as fanfic, but whatever, here you go. 
> 
> TW: Depression, cancer, cursing.

Chaya was late to class. Oh, how she hated being late to class. She slid into her seat, cheeks flaming, and tried to ignore the professor’s raised eyebrows. “Well, David, it looks like you’ll have a partner for this project, after all. Please work with Chaya.”

Chaya blushed even more furiously at that.  _David. Why did it have to be David._ She willed her heart to stop racing as everyone in the class gathered their things and switched seats to sit with their partner. She slung her bookbag onto the floor and nudged her glasses up her nose, nervously trying to avoid making eye contact with David Jacobs. David freaking Jacobs, the hottest boy in class. Of course this would happen on a day she hadn’t bothered to wear makeup or contacts or do her hair properly. It was just her luck. (Although she hardly ever wore makeup or did her hair properly, so she supposed it was her own fault. Maybe she ought to think about doing that stuff more often. Ugh, and she definitely should’ve showered last night…) “Hi,” she said, swallowing hard and hoping her hand wasn’t too sweaty. “I’m Chaya.”

“David,” he said, shaking her hand firmly and then pulling out a ballpoint pen from some hometown radio station or pest control company or dentist. “Nice to meet you.”

“You, too.”

*

_ “Wow, Chaytsi, you’re stuck with Jacobs? That sucks.” _

_ “Mmm.” _

_ “He’s all weird-looking, too. I mean, he’d probably be okay if he cleaned himself up, but like—Mohawk? Nose ring? Septum piercing? Too much.” _

_ “Mmm.” _

_ “And the studded belt and the black leather jacket with those dumb pins—what the heck kind of fashion statement is he trying to make?” _

_ “Punk.” _

_ “Well, the dude needs a stylist. That haircut is heinous.” _

_ “For someone who says they don’t like looking at him, you sure know a lot about how he looks.” _

_ “Like I said, he’s weird-looking. I can’t help staring! It’s like looking at a car crash. Everyone does it even if they don’t want to.” _

_ “Mmm.” _

_ “Whatever, Chaya. Dinner?” _

_ “Sure.” _

*

“What happened to your mohawk?”

“Aren’t we supposed to be working on the project?”

“Yes,” she admitted.

“Okay, then.”

Chaya chewed at the end of her pencil and looked back up at David, who was running his fingers through the sideswept hair that she supposed used to be his mohawk. “Are you trying to grow it out?”

“Project?”

“Right.” He’d kept one side of his head shaved, but the rest of his dark, nearly-black hair was combed over in these beautifully long, unexpectedly wavy locks, and she just wanted to run her fingers through it… Why was he so gorgeous. Why did she have to work with him. Why were they both so quiet. “Why don’t you talk?”

“What’s there to say?”

“Small talk?”

“Not really my thing.”

Chaya frowned. “Hmm.”

“Is it yours?”

“Not really.” She shrugged.

“Well, then.”

“Fair enough.” They both turned their heads back to their work—Davey to his computer, Chaya to her spiralbound notebook (she thought better on paper). Chaya thanked her lucky stars that this project didn’t require much interaction and lost herself in her studies for the next several hours. Until her stomach growled. “Sorry,” she said, embarrassed at having interrupted their silence. “I’m going to head—I guess I need to eat something.”

“It’s late,” David said, closing his laptop and slipping it into his black, crossbody satchel. “I’ll walk you.”

She thought about protesting, but decided against it. “Thanks.”

He gave a small smile. “Gotta put this scary clothing to use.”

She chuckled, and they walked to her apartment in companionable silence.

*

_ “The punk walked you home?” _

_ “Yeah.” _

_ “Huh. You’re lucky he didn’t shiv you in an alleyway.” _

_ “Punks have manners, too, you know.” _

_ “Whatever, Chaya.” _

*

David opened a bag of Skittles and passed them across to Chaya. “Want some? They’re kosher.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Yeah. They have ‘em online now; I buy ‘em in bulk.”

“Nice. Thanks.” She grabbed a handful and tipped them onto the table, sorting them out by color. She started with the purples and made her way from there, saving the orange ones to eat last.  

They worked a while longer, both of them clicking away on their keyboards, until David looked up. “You’re an excellent writer,” he said, his voice full of… not surprise, exactly, but… admiration? Relief?

“Oh, thanks,” she said, scrolling through the file they were co-editing on Google docs. She sighed at the expanse of pages they still had to go through, thought of the models they had yet to run and analyze, and pushed her chair back. “I need coffee. Want some?”

“Please,” he said, standing up to pull his wallet out of the back pocket of his distressed leather pants. “Small, black. Whatever roast they have is fine; I don’t care.”

“My treat,” she said, waving away his dollar bills. “From one good writer to another.”

“Thanks,” he said, and his eyes crinkled. He turned back to the computer and ran his fingers through the short hair on the side of his head as Chaya walked to the small café in the library. She wondered if he was growing it out into a normal haircut or if he was transitioning into emo punk now. She hoped the former, but… he was cute either way, and it was his head. Not like she had any say or stake in what he did with it. Knock it off, Chaya.

*

Chaya: I can’t get this model to work  
David: Which model  
Chaya: The bootstrapped version of our baseline model  
David: Send me your code 

*

David: Have you made graphs in R before? I can’t get them to transfer properly into LaTeX, and I  **think**  I have the LaTeX code right, so maybe it’s a problem on the other end  
Chaya: LaTeX is finicky. Try deleting half of the paper and recompiling  
David: It worked wow you’re a miracle worker  
Chaya: Now just go in stages. LaTeX doesn’t like it when you add too much new text  
David: Got it. Thanks 

*

Chaya: I’m so sorry I can’t make our meeting tonight can we reschedule for next week  
David: We have a deadline on Thursday though  
Chaya: I  
[…] […] […]  
David: You what?  
Chaya: I’ll run the models and analyze the data and write up the results and you can edit?   
David: Can’t we just Skype to sort this through?  
Chaya: NO  
David: Geez  
Chaya: I’m sorry. No.   
David: Phone?   
Chaya: I can’t. I   
[…] […]  
[…]  
David: Yes?  
Chaya: No.  
David: Okay. I’ll run the models, you analyze the data and write up the results, and I’ll edit.  
Chaya: Thanks. 

*  
David: Why weren’t you in class  
Chaya: I submitted the material on time  
David: That wasn’t what I asked 

David: I’m coming over  
Chaya: NO  
David: I’m already here  
Chaya: WHY  
David: Let me in 

David: Chaya

David: Chayele, please  
Chaya: I’m not your Chayele  
David: I know, I’m sorry. I overstepped. I’m worried about you  
Chaya: Don’t be  
David: Please let me in; I can tell you’re not okay  
Chaya: Which is why you shouldn’t be here; we’re not even friends  
David: Well, we *are* partners  
Chaya: *Lab _*_  partners  
David: Please  
Chaya: It’s not appropriate. We’re not close. I shouldn’t ask you for help. I should ask someone else for help. Someone who knows me.  
David: Have you asked someone who knows you for help?  
Chaya: No.  
David: Well, I might not know you well enough to help, but I am here offering  
Chaya: It’s wrong  
David: Not if I offer  
Chaya: I’m not doing well  
David: I don’t know how yet, but let me help  
Chaya: I look terrible  
David: I figured, from the adverse response to my Skype suggestion  
Chaya: I sound like a frog  
David: Again, I got that from context clues   
Chaya: You are not the person I should be leaning on through this, I don’t want to burden you  
David: But I’m here  
Chaya: Door’s unlocked  
David: Motherfucker 

*

“You mean I coulda just barged in anytime?” David called into the apartment, unlacing his combat boots and placing them on the shoe rack by the door. He paused and cocked his head into the silence. “Chaya?”

“Please leave,” he heard a shaky voice say. “I shouldn’t have let you in. I shouldn’t be asking you for this.”

“You haven’t asked for anything,” he said, hanging his black leather jacket up by the door. “I offered it.” He followed the voice back into the apartment, pausing at the juncture between two rooms. Which one? “Chayele?”

“I’m not your Chayele.”

Bingo. “Hi,” David said, turning into a small bedroom on the left side of the hallway and taking in the obscenely messy bedroom. There were clothes and blankets and wadded-up tissues tossed all over the floor, plates of uneaten food laid out like tripwires, and empty bags of kosher skittles crumpled near the trashcan. And in the unmade bed, sprawled out with her phone hanging limply from her hand and an overheated laptop humming next to her, was Chaya. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Her eyes were closed; she knew if she opened them, she’d burst into tears.

“Wanna talk?”

“I’m sad,” she said, biting her lip at the tremble in her voice.

“I can see that,” he replied, picking his way across the room to her.

“Punks don’t do sad.”

“Sure they do,” he said, sinking onto the floor and resting his back against her mattress. “This one’s even good at it,” he added, pulling his knees up to his chest.

“My mom is dying.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?” She sat up and stared at him, at his slightly longer hair, his broken nose, the silver septum piercing glinting in the afternoon light. “Get out.”

“I mean…” David dropped his head and then looked back up. “I just… I don’t know how to respond to that. That’s awful, Chaya. I’m so sorry.”

“That’s all you had to say,” she said, flopping back onto the bed and pulling the covers over her head. “Is your mom dead?”

“No.”

“Is she dying?”

“No.”

“Then that’s all you  _can_  say,” she said, feeling herself splintering and blowing apart like a tree in a hurricane.

“It is. I wish I could say more. I just… I’m so sorry, Chaya. Really.”

“Yeah. Now you see why you’re not the person for this. Please leave.” She heard the rustle of his clothes as he stood up and the slight creak of his knees as he sat down on the bed instead of leaving the room.

“Only if you really want me to. You have to tell me you want me to, though.” He paused, and she knew his hazel eyes—were they hazel, though? She could never decide—were dilated in uncertainty. “Do you?”

She curled even tighter in on herself. “No,” she said, reluctantly. “No. I don’t want to be alone right now.”

“Okay. Then I’ll stay as long as you want.”

“You shouldn’t—”

“Chaya. When’s the last time you slept?”

“Monday.” She heard him draw in a sharp breath and then try to cover it up with a sham cough that jiggled the old mattress that was sagging beneath the weight of the two of them.

“Do you think you could take a nap, maybe?”

“I’m too scared,” she said. Why hide it? He’d asked for this, he’d asked to see her painful thoughts and feelings, and if he’d asked, well… she didn’t have the energy to cover it up anymore. Maybe if she laid it all out on the table he’d leave and she’d get over him and that would be that.

“Of what?”

“Of missing something,” she said, sniffling. “I might miss something.”

“What if I promise to wake you if anything happens?”

She poked her head out from under the covers and met his eyes. “You’d do that?”

“Of course,” he said, his rumpled red t-shirt setting off the darkness of his hair.

“O…okay,” she said, reluctantly handing him her phone. “Anything at all, though. You have to wake me if anything happens.”

“I promise.”

“Okay,” she said, scanning his serious face again, taking in the firm set of his jaw and the worry flickering behind those indefinable eyes. “I’ll try, then.”

“Good,” he said, rising a little bit stiffly from the bed. “I’ll be in the living room.”

“Okay.”

*

David was putting the finishing touches on the living room, which he’d decided to clean while he waited for the rugelach to finish baking, when Chaya walked into the room, a dirty blanket wrapped around her like a monk’s habit. “You didn’t have to do any of that.”

He turned and gave her a small smile. “I know.”

She gave him a small smile back and shuffled to the couch, sinking down on it like she could take another nap right then. “Nothing happened?”

“Nothing happened,” he said, handing her phone back to her. “Want some chicken soup?”

“ _That’s_  what that smell is,” her face clearing. “I was wondering.”

“Rugelach, too,” he said. “I hope almonds are okay. That’s all I could find in your pantry.”

Chaya’s face crumpled and she began crying into her hands.

His eyebrows flew up in concern. “No rugelach?”

“My mom always makes it for me when I’m sad,” she choked out.

“Oh.” David fiddled with his nose ring and bit his lip. “Well, why don’t you take some of these to her, then?”

“She doesn’t want me home,” Chaya said, blowing her nose on her blanket. “She’s not…” She laughed at a black thought, then said, “She’s not going to die immediately. The doctor thinks she has at least three years, probably more like five, so…” She shrugged as David tried to figure out what expression to put on his face. “It makes more sense to finish out the semester and decide from there.”

David went to the kitchen and returned with a bowl of chicken soup. “Here.”

“Thanks.” She held it for a moment, just looking at it, watching tears fall into the liquid and make it even saltier. “She and Dad are just running around to doctor’s appointments right now, setting up a treatment plan, getting things straightened out… not much point in going home right now, you know? Only a few weeks until I’m home, anyway, and I can cry here as well as I can there.”

“True.”

“She doesn’t want me to fall behind on my studies because of her.”

“Right.” The buzzer went off, and David disappeared into the kitchen, where he pulled out the sheet of rugelach and began to transfer them to the wire cooling rack.

“This is what’s right for my family. Don’t judge.”

“I wasn’t,” David said, sitting on the opposite end of the couch and crossing his lanky legs. “You know what’s best for you. How’s the soup?”

“Good,” she said, nodding down at it. “You’re a good writer and a good cook.”

He smiled. “I’m glad. Sleep and food are important, Chayele.”

She looked up at him, ready to snap about the pet name again, but then she saw the teasing smile playing across his lips. “Man does not live by kosher skittles alone,” she said, her expression softening. 

“No,” he said. “Nor by chicken soup. Would you like some rugelach?”

“Yes,” she said, removing her glasses to rub at her reddened eyes. “Thank you, David.”

“My pleasure.” 


	15. Punk!Davey, Part 2 (Davey/Chaya, Modern AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set later in the same timeline/world as the previous chapter. Same content warnings.

It was 3am, and Chaya was watering the flowers. “Azaleas. Species  _Rhododendron ferrugineum_. Genus  _Rhododendron._ Family Ericaceae.” She tugged sharply at the garden hose. “Camellias. Species  _Camellia japonica_. Genus  _Camellia_. Family Theaceae.” The camellias looked fine, but her mother had always said they were thirsty plants. “Lenten Rose. Species  _Helleborus orientalus._  Genus  _Helleborus._ Family Ranunculaceae.” They were wilting, but they’d been blooming for weeks, so that was to be expected.

“Chaya!”

Startled, she dropped the hose into the grass, where it landed at an angle that soon had the bottoms of her pajama pants soaked clean through.

“What are you doing?” Her sister asked, poking her head outside.

“Watering the plants,” she said. Wasn’t that obvious?

“Yes, but…” Rebecca trailed off and shook her head. “Come inside? It’s late.”

“I can’t sleep,” Chaya said, bending to grab the hose.

“You slept all afternoon,” Rebecca objected, and Chaya shrugged.

“Maybe that’s why.”

Becca sighed and braced a hand on the doorjamb. “Do you want company?”

Chaya closed her eyes and took a deep breath, listening to the patter of water droplets falling on leaves. “It’s okay,” she said after a minute, switching off the water and winding the hose back around the reel. “Let’s go inside.”

*

The buzz of her phone jolted her awake, and she scrabbled for it, sliding her finger quickly across the screen to hang up on whoever was calling. Her muzzy brain registered the name ‘David’ and her boyfriend’s accompanying contact photo right as she sent the call over to voicemail, but all she did was glance at the clock by her bed, note that it was well past noon, roll over, and fall back asleep.

*

The mattress sank down by her feet and then she heard a gentle, “Hey, sweetie.”

She made an unhappy noise, completely disoriented. “Becks?”

“Are you hungry? Dad bought dinner.”

“What time is it?”

“Seven.”

Chaya groaned. “I don’t want to be nocturnal,” she said, sitting up and picking the grit out of the corners of her eyes.

“Your body needs sleep,” Rebecca said, gently rubbing Chaya’s bare foot. “It doesn’t have to be at a normal time yet.” She hesitated for a second, then added, “And… you know you don’t have to go back this semester, right? That it’s okay to stay here?”

Chaya nodded down at the floral quilt and ran a finger over the hand-stitching. “What did Dad pick up?”

“Chinese.”

“Yum,” she said, wrinkling her noise. “I love eating oil.”

“Cheap oil, at that,” her sister agreed, rising from the bed. “He went to the one in the Wal-Mart parking lot this time.”

“Stupid Americans,” Chaya grumbled, following Rebecca downstairs. “Ruining perfectly good cuisine. Why can’t we eat the real stuff?  _Real_ Chinese food is amazing.”

Rebecca raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so you’re going to treat us all to Seasons of Sichuan now, are you?”

“No,” Chaya said. “Grad students don’t make that kind of money.”

“Neither does Dad,” Rebecca pointed out, although her voice was softer now that they were nearing the kitchen.

“Cheap oil is fine,” Chaya said, plastering a smile on her face as they entered the kitchen. “Hi, Dad! Smells good, what’d you get?”

*

Chaya managed to nudge her apartment door open with her foot and make it into the entry hall before the pile of mail spilled from her arms and onto the floor. She locked the door behind her and tossed her keys onto the kitchen table before slinging her backpack into a chair and dropping her duffel bag on the counter. It took her two tries to unlock her phone, and her foot skidded slightly on an unopened envelope as she flicked through to find her text conversation with her family.

_Chaya: I’m back. No rain, found parking quickly. <3_

_Becks: Thanks for letting us know. Love you! I’ll call soon! xo_

_Dad: That’s good. Get some rest. If you want to come home that’s fine. From Dad._

She smiled slightly and fell into bed, pulling the covers over her head. Her phone buzzed again and she pulled it under the covers with her, figuring it was a follow-up from her family—maybe Rebecca fighting another losing battle in the war of teaching their father how to text properly.

It was not.

_David: Are you back yet?_

_David: I missed you over break. Not sure if you had a chance to listen to my messages; it’s okay if you didn’t. They weren’t important. Just wanted to hear your voice and say hello._

_David: Anyway. Will my caffeine monster let me buy her coffee tomorrow?_

Chaya dropped the phone onto the floor and fell asleep.

*

She woke up at 2am, but there were no flowers to water here, so instead she counted the moles on her arms.  _One… two… three…_   She’d heard that if you had more than fifteen, you were almost certain to get breast cancer and die, which had to be bad science, but then again, what did she know about science? She hadn’t taken a class like that in years…  _four… five… six…_  So sure, it sounded alarmist, but this way at least she’d know what she was in for, and there were advantages to that…  _seven… eight… nine…_  How big did these moles have to be?  _…ten… eleven… twelve…_ Were those dots by her elbow freckles or moles?  _thirteen… fourteen… fifteen…_  Fifteen. Well, shoot. What if you were right at fifteen?

*

Her phone buzzed angrily from the floor and she groaned, waking up just enough to glare at it and see David’s name on the screen. Again.  _I wish I could put it on silent,_  she thought, and then her heart clenched.  _Oh_. She… she could do that now, couldn’t she? Heck, she could turn it  _off_  if she wanted to. She didn’t need to be reachable all the time now. She could lose it somewhere and it would be totally fine. For the first time in years, she wasn’t expecting emergency calls. Not anymore.

Her eyes flicked to the alarm clock on her nightstand. It was only eleven. Class wasn’t until three. Chaya dropped an extra pillow onto the phone to muffle it and pulled the covers back over her head.

*  
She got to campus a half hour early and hid in the bathroom, her feet dangling above the floor as she sat on the toilet, eyes glued to some dumb quiz game on her phone. She wasn’t even reading the answers—she was just testing her reflexes, seeing if she could click before the timer even started to run. Chaya finished the game, a 0-10 blowout, and smiled as her ranking tumbled another thirty spots. She was losing _their_ game, but she was winning hers.

At exactly three in the afternoon, she unlocked the stall door, left the bathroom, walked four doors down the hallway, and entered the classroom on her right. She smiled weakly at the professor and, out of the corner of her eye, she saw David’s head jerk up. She bit her lip and tried to slow her breaths as she walked to her usual seat—the one right next to his.

“Hi,” he whispered, his smile bright. “I missed you.”

She smiled back, making sure to crinkle the edges of her eyes so that he’d think it was real, that she was fine. “I missed you, too,” she whispered, and  _that_  was real, at least. She reached over to draw a smiley face on the top of his notes, and his smile grew even brighter.

“I’d love to hear about everyone’s breaks,” the professor said apologetically, “But we’re doing Markov-switching models today, and I want to save the last thirty minutes for you to get started on the homework while I’m here to help. Sound good?”

Fifteen twenty- and thirty-somethings bobbed their heads in response, and Chaya forced hers to bob along, too. She would definitely need help on the homework, she was certain of that, but maybe she’d just leave half an hour early instead. Kris would probably be a little annoyed by that—Kris liked for them to stay the whole period, and honestly, Chaya would have felt the same if she were the one teaching this class—but if she left early then she wouldn’t have to talk to anyone afterwards, and that would be good…

Her eyes flicked over to David, who was flipping open his computer so that he could follow along with the R-code Kris had displayed up on the whiteboard. She looked at the determined set of his jaw, the silver stud glinting in his eyebrow, and the doodle she’d drawn in his notebook, getting stuck on the way her firm lines looked completely alien next to his feather-light chicken scrawl. She looked for just a little too long, though, and he caught her at it. His grin resurfaced and he scribbled a message to her, writing a couple of sentences just under the smiley face.

 _Dinner after class? You can tell me about your break, I’ll tell you about mine? Spoiler alert: Les forgot to open the garage door before backing out of it, so_ that  _was a fun time for everyone._

Chaya smiled and nodded, sliding his notebook over to write,  _Sounds great. My stomach’s been a bit iffy lately, but if it’s settled by six then absolutely._

He gave her a sympathetic look and she shrugged, making a ‘what can you do’ face before turning away from his sincere hazel eyes and trying to focus on whatever the heck Kris was explaining now. After a few minutes she snuck a look back at David and sighed, jealous of his focus and calm and… Well. Of lots of things, really.

Yeah. Leaving thirty minutes early would be really good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to leave prompts for me, feel free-- might take me months to do them, but I *usually* get around to, like... 75% of them? And there is still hope for the others. ;)


	16. Punk!Davey, Part 3 (Davey/Chaya, Modern AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Punk!Davey, Part 3 (Davey/Chaya, Modern AU). Parental loss, cursing, grief. Experimental.

**David (20:05):** You okay?

 **Chaya (20:10):** Sorry, stomach’s been weird

 **David (20:10):** I figured

            That’s been happening a lot lately

 **Chaya (20:15):** Yeah, stuff just isn’t sitting right

 **David (20:15):** Do you think you should see a doctor?

 **Chaya (20:16):** No, it’s okay. Stomach gets weird every month

 **David (20:16):** Oh

            Right

            Sorry

 **Chaya (20:18):** Np. Thanks

 **David (20:20):** Want me to bring some chocolate over? Is that what I’m supposed to offer? It’s what Sarah likes, but you’re not Sarah, so I don’t know what you want

 **Chaya (20:21):** Sweet of you

 **David (20:22):** Literally :)

 **Chaya (20:22):** Ha

 **David (20:22):** So yes to the chocolate?

 **Chaya (20:22):** It’s a no thank you, but thank you anyway

 **David (20:23):** That’s a lot of thank yous ;)

            Call if you need me to pick anything up for you

           

 **David (18:14):** You okay? You skipped out early again from class

 **Chaya (18:39):** Stomach

 **David (18:40):** This can’t be normal

 **Chaya (18:41):** Every month

 **David (18:41):** I do not envy you

            Okay well feel better soon

 **Chaya (18:43):** Thank you

 

 **David (13:28):** I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages

 **Chaya (13:28):** I feel the same

 **David (13:30):** Coffee tomorrow? Dinner?

 **Chaya (13:35):** Stomach :(

 **David (13:38):** Ah

 

 **David (22:17):** You know I’m not stupid, right?

 **Chaya (22:45):** ???

 **David (23:00):** Because I’m not

 **Chaya (23:10):** David you are in a top 20 program

           For econ

           Of course I know you’re not stupid

 **David (23:11):** Well you aren’t acting like it

 **Chaya (23:12):** Are you trying to start a fight over text? Just be up front with me. How have I insulted your intelligence?

 **David (23:12):** You seem to think I’ll believe that your period lasts for 2 ½ weeks

 **Chaya (23:14):** Oh. That.

 **David (23:14):** Yeah. That.

           

           Chaya?

           

           Look, I don’t **want** to have this discussion over text, but I know you hate talking on the phone and you skip out early from class so my options here are limited

           

           Now who’s not being up front

           

           Stop ignoring me

           

           Chaya stop it

           

           Need I remind you that I have tracked you down before when you refused to respond to me? I will do it again if I have to

           

           That sounds more stalkery than I meant it

            I just meant that I am feeling hurt and ignored and like you are going out of your way to avoid me

            And I would like to know why

            And discuss strategies for communicating better in the future

           

           This isn’t how you normally are; something is going on, and I would like to know about it

            You haven’t done this since… before we got together, right?

            Yeah

            This isn’t like you so I know something is wrong and whatever it is I want to work it out

           But in order to do that you have to talk to me

           Which you are not doing

           …obviously

 

            I feel like this is a diary entry now

            Dear Diary,

            Wait no guys don’t have diaries, they have journals

            Dear Journal, my girlfriend is in a funk and I want to be understanding and shit but it’s not easy when she won’t fucking talk to me

           

           CHAYA

 

 **David (9:05):** Oh shit

            I just remembered

            The last time you did this

            Was when your mom was diagnosed

            Did something happen with your mom?

 **Chaya (9:15):** Yes

            She died

           

 **Chaya (9:51):** See this is why I didn’t want to tell you

            You don’t know what to say so you say nothing and then I feel even more alone and you probably aren’t trying to hurt me but you’re so scared of doing something wrong that you end up doing the most wrong thing you can do which is not responding at all and acting like things are fine

            And they’re not, you know

            They won’t ever be fine

            But I’m not allowed to tell you that

            Because that will make you feel bad

            And you don’t want to feel bad, not for more than a minute or so

            So if I make you feel bad I will have to make you feel better even though I’m the one grieving

            So what I’m supposed to do here is reassure you

            To apologize for making you feel uncomfortable

            To shield you from my pain and act brave

           This requires me to grieve prettily but not publicly

           So that you don’t have to try to understand or reach into what has happened to me

            And I will resent you for that and you will resent me for wanting you to step into this unrelenting awfulness with me

            You’re going to look at me in class and be relieved because I look normal

            But I’m not normal, David

            I can’t ever be normal now

            I’m sitting in class and all that’s running through my head is how I wish I were dead

            How this hurts too much to keep existing

            And yet I am not allowed to tell you any of that

           Now that you know that my mother is dead, this is how the script goes: You say you’re sorry, I say “thank you,” you say “time heals all wounds,” I say “yes,” and you feel relieved

           Because I have recognized the indisputable wisdom of your words

           Which means that you have done your duty

           So you can pat yourself on the back and move on

           Because this is over for you now

           You don’t have to think about it anymore

           You went through the motions, you did what was required

           You played your part; now exit the scene

           (Stage left, please)

 

           You know, I never thought about it until Mom died, but all of that is a ritual designed to make everyone else feel better. It comforts all of the people who don’t really feel too bad in the first place

            You know who it doesn’t comfort?

           Me

           Dad

           Becca

            Because it’s not for us

            It’s for everyone else

            And I know that because it does not make me feel better

           It did not make me feel better the first fifty times I heard it from people

           It will not make me feel better when I hear it from you

           It just makes me feel even more alone than I did before

           I wish people would just stop at “I’m sorry”

           Instead of telling me pain is the price we pay for love

           Or how I will heal in time

           Or that they know how I feel

 

           They know how I feel!

           Did you know that?

           I didn’t

           But they are so confident in this that it must be true

           I am slow and muddled and sad, who am I to know better

           Who am I to contradict them when they say they know how I feel?

           They must know—they tell me they do, and why would they lie?

 

           Their mother died, too, so they know

           They must

           (Granted, she was seventy-five, and they themselves were fifty-two, but they know, they know, they know just how I feel)

           Their grandmother died, so they know

           Oh, how well they know

           (Their grandmother watched her own children grow up, attended every one of their weddings, and saw those children have children, but… they know how I feel)

           They broke up with their boyfriend, so they know

           Their dog died last month, so they know

           They do

           They know

           My mother is dead and so is their dog

           Their feelings are twin to mine

           So they can understand

           They can empathize

           Because they, too, have experienced loss

           Upon loss

           Upon loss

           They know my pain, though I do not

 

           It feels odd to say that, because it is so very present

           And yet I can’t explain it

           It’s just so…

 

           See? I don’t even know

 

           Let me try again:

           It’s bigger than I am

           Sharper, stronger, longer-lasting

           It’s smothering me, David

           Pressing the life and love out of me

           Until all that I once was

           Is no longer there

 

           It would be nice to not exist, I think

           To unexist

           To de-exist

           To vanish into thin air

 

           But that’s impossible. I do exist, and it hurts

 

           So what I want to know is this:

           How do I go on

           How do I live like this

 _(They_ know, I suppose, but I don’t)

           (I wish I did, because it hurts)

           (Oh, David, it hurts like hell)

           And, oh, David—did you know?

           My mother is dead

           She’s dead, David

           Dead

           She’s not lost, she’s dead

           But you, David—you I’m going to lose

           Maybe because I didn’t tell you quickly enough, maybe because when I did tell you I told you too much

           Maybe because I’m different now and either you will crack under the weight of me or I will erode from trying to grieve without hurting you

           I don’t know which yet

           But then I don’t know anything anymore

           And I

           I’m sorry

 

           Fuck

           That was the one thing I didn’t want to say

           I don’t owe anyone an apology for how I feel, for how much this hurts, for being raw and angry and bruised and bent

           I don’t have to apologize for telling the truth

 

           Do you want to know the truth, David?

           The truth is that everything hurts

           And everything is dark

           And everything is wrong

           And I’m not sorry

           I’m just sad

           And I’m drowning in it

 

_Fists pounding at the door._

“Chaya. Chaya! It’s me. Let me in.” 

Door and voice crack open. “David?”

Arms around her, hands gripping tight. Comfort. Warmth. Urgency. “Don’t be sorry. Don’t hide. Don’t reassure me or shut me out or feel you need to be anything but what you are, Chaya, I—please, just—fuck, Chaya, I—I want you to shout and cry and fall asleep in the middle of the day and, and, and to tell me to make you real food and let me do your laundry and sit next to you saying nothing at all and I just—I…” 

She “David—” She can’t. She “David, I—” She cries. 

Hands tighter. Words softer. “Don’t hide from me, Chaya. Please. _Please._ ”

Nod against his shoulder. See salt and sadness stain his shirt and start to spread. 

And arms and hands and words and breath and “…be right here. I’ll help. I’ll wait. I’ll… I’ll do anything I can. Anything at all. And I don’t know what it’s like, and I don’t know what time will do, and I… even if I wish that I could understand I know that I… that you… I… I just… I’m sorry. Oh, Chaya, I’m so sorry. I… Chaya, I… your mom, she… she was wonderful.”

“She is.” 

“Yes.”

“She… was.”

_Oh._

“…yes.”


	17. Canon Era. Jack/Kath. Fluff.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack and Katherine on a train.

Jack was sitting rigidly on the train, doing his absolute best to look like one half of the proper young couple he and Katherine were pretending to be. Well,  _she_ wasn’t pretending—she was as proper as they came. He, on the other hand, had revealed his ignorance almost immediately, sinning against social mores by squeezing her thigh in excitement as the train lurched out of the station. He knew that Katherine didn’t mind, of course, and that was a mercy, but he still flamed with embarrassment at the pointed glare of the matron seated opposite them and a smirk from a nearby gentleman. She’d quickly explained his faux pas to him in low tones that were muffled by the train’s whistle, and he’d responded by yanking his hands into his lap and glowering at his feet.

He would not make the same mistake on the ride home.

“Jackie,” Katherine said softly, “Did you have a nice time?”

“Yeah,” he said, untensing a little as he turned to face her. “You’s lookin’ a bit pink, there, Ace,” he said, his lips curving gently upward. The wind and the water had long since removed her makeup, revealing a faint sunburn underneath her eyes and freckles dancing across her cheeks. If he’d been bolder he would’ve traced his finger across them, or at least pulled his sketchbook out to remember them with pictures rather than touch, but after the incident that morning he wasn’t about to do anything so brazen. “Ya feelin’ okay?”

“Just fine,” she said, smoothing out her skirts and scooting lower in her seat. “A little tired, is all.”

“We’ll be back soon,” he said, wanting to drape his arm around her shoulders and pull her close, wanting her to take the initiative and use his shoulder as a pillow, but knowing that if a squeeze of her thigh—over her clothes, no less—was unacceptable in public, then a sleepy hug or a head on the shoulder was surely taboo.  

She nodded, stifling a yawn, and gave him a smile. “Was finally seeing the beach worth taking the day off?”

“I seen beaches before,” he bristled, but stood down when she arched an eyebrow at him. “Yeah,” he said, eyes beginning to crinkle. He wasn’t sure how she did it, but she smoothed his ruffled feathers quicker than anyone else ever had. It was just that, well, everything about her made him want to smile. It was like she’d promised him a hot meal and a featherbed. Like she’d matched his latest dirty joke with one of her own. Like she’d stolen the key to his heart. Goodness,  _that_  was a terrifying thought, and so he brushed it rapidly aside. “I ain’t never been to a beach like that, all clean an’ fancy-like. It was nice, Ace. Real nice.”

“I’m glad,” she said, and they left it there, listening to the clack of the wheels and the thump of the rails underneath. The repetitive noise and the subtle sway of the train carriage soon took its toll on Katherine, whose eyes started drifting closed. Jack felt his heart melt a little as he watched her head droop steadily towards her chest, her breaths shallow but even.

She was beautiful in sleep, he thought. Of course she was beautiful all the time, but sleep cast a glamour over her that softened her sharpness and reminded him that, for all her self-assurance, she wasn’t any older than he was, that maybe he knew things and could do things to protect her, to help her, to…. a bump startled her back awake, making Jack curse under his breath.

She rubbed her eyes and sighed as he lamented the loss of a chance to watch Katherine to his heart’s content, to chart the planes of her face, to map the sweep of her eyelashes. He treasured the moments when he could study her image and store it away for later, for days when the selling was slow and nights when his world seemed bleak.

His frustration with the train was short-lived, however, as she nodded off again in a matter of minutes. This time, though, her head fell sideways, settling lightly on his shoulder. “Katherine?” He asked hesitantly, wanting her to stay but not wanting to get this wrong the way he had in the morning. “You, uh… You sure ‘bout this?”

“Yes,” she breathed, wrapping her arms around his left arm and snuggling closer. “You stay right there, Jack. Don’t move.”


	18. Canon Era. Jack/Kath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack and Katherine are at turns wistful and silly.

Jack and Katherine stood at the edge of the cliff, looking down at the turquoise and teal of the water, watching the waves toss up foam as white as pearls.

“It’s more beautiful than I ever thought it could be,” Jack said, his voice a little thick.

“I’m so glad,” Katherine said, pulling him a little closer to her side. “I’ve always loved Ireland, but… I’m glad you do, too.”

“I dunno why they ever left,” Jack said gruffly, frowning at the white cliffside and the clumps of pale pink flowers clinging to its edge. “I dunno why they… Here they maybe could’ve…”

“Those were the famine years, Jack,” Katherine reminded him gently, squeezing his hand. “They had to leave.” 

“It’s hard to picture a famine here,” he sighed, scuffing the toe of his new leather hiking boots into the grass in front of him. “Don’t seem like the kinda place that could happen, does it? It’s too pretty.” 

“Pretty, yes, but dangerous, too,” Katherine said, holding a hand up to her eyes to shield them from the glare reflecting off the water. “Imagine it in winter, love—no neighbors for miles around, just you and your thatched roof and whatever food and supplies you stored up over the summer? A hard life, I should think.”

Jack nodded, but his brow was still furrowed. “I just… It seems they shoulda… Like they coulda hiked up inta the hills an’ hidden away from it all, ya know? Like here they coulda… I mean, maybe here they coulda been happy in a way they never was in New York. Made a life f’r themselves.”

“And for you?” Katherine asked, reading between the lines.

Jack nodded again, then sighed. “Woulda, coulda, shoulda,” he said, turning from the cliff’s edge. “Forget I said anything, Ace. It didn’t happen, so no use thinkin’ about it.” 

“It’s going to eat you up inside if you swallow it down,” she warned, following him back down the dirt path. 

“Not if I chew it first,” he joked, quirking his lips up at her in a lopsided grin.

“Chewing on it means talking about it,” Katherine chided, “But okay. We can drop it for now.”

“Good,” Jack said, stopping and waiting for her to catch up. “ ‘Cause right now I don’t wanna think about the past, macushla—I wanna think about you an’ your quick brain an’ your plush lips an’ your plump—”

“Jack!” Katherine protested, swatting his wayward hand. “We’re in public!” 

“There’s no one here!” He objected, flinging his arms wide. “Unless you count those sheep over there, an’ that’s hardly fair. Sheep are pretty dumb, ya know.”

“I do know,” she said primly, “But I also know how a lady and a gentleman behave when it is possible for them to be unwittingly observed, and you are not adhering to those standards.” 

He snorted. “Since when are you a lady? Since when am I a _gentleman?_ ”

Katherine’s eyes softened. “To me? Almost since the day I met you.” 

He blinked and then raised her hand to his lips, his eyes crinkling. “Milady,” he said, bowing slightly.

“M’lord,” she said, struggling to remain dignified.

“May I escort you offa this sheer cliff?”

“Yes, please, if you would be so kind,” she simpered, batting her eyelashes. 

“Right this way,” he said, bowing even deeper and gesturing to the path. As she minced teasingly by him, he tugged at one of her auburn locks and began to sing. “My wiiiiild Irish roooose…” 

 **“I** should be singing that to **you!”** Katherine interjected, pulling up short in the middle of the trail. “You’re the Irish one, not me!”

“Yeah, but you’re the girl, so you hafta be the rose!”

“But you’re wilder!”

“Ohhh, now that’s the pot callin’ the kettle black right there, that is…”

 

All in all, they agreed, it was quite an enjoyable outing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [My Wild Irish Rose song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2D7nXEBjSY)


	19. Jack and Kath, Canon Era

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suggestive moment between Jack & Kath. Based on a scene from the TV show _The Living and the Dead_. Requested by Anna.

Jack grunted as he dragged the heavy camera and tripod into the bedroom. “Now wouldja mind tellin’ me just goshdarn why you had ta have this thing in the _bedroom_?” He straightened and wiped the sweat from his brow, leaning side to side to ease a kink from his lower back. 

“It’ll be worth it, I promise,” Katherine said, stretching up slightly to press a light kiss to his cheek. “Put it at the foot of the bed, would you?”

He glared at her and made a show of pointing out the pit stains in his shirt and the perspiration soaking his hair.

“Please, Jackie?”

He sighed heavily and picked the massive camera up again. “Here good?” 

“Perfect.”

“Unf,” he said, and positioned it so that it was facing the large queen-sized bed. “Now are ya gonna stop bein’ so cagey or what?” 

Katherine grinned. “We’re going to have a photoshoot.”

He squinted at her in confusion. “What?” She smiled even wider. “In _here?”_  

She nodded and then sashayed over to him, exaggerating the swing of her hips and looking up at him through her long eyelashes. “We are indeed,” she said, placing her hands on his shoulders and kissing him. “Our very own boudoir photos, love; how about it?” 

Jack threw his head back in laughter. “You’re a wonder, Katherine Kelly, heavens above, I—” He laughed again, bright and full, and placed his hands on hers. “What on earth gave you the idea to do _this?”_  

She shrugged and fluttered her eyelashes at him. “We won’t always be this young and beautiful, and I thought it might be nice to have something to remember us by, later on when we’re old and gray and saggy and my breasts and belly are down to my knees after having all of your children.”

He quirked his lips in a half-smile. “Yeah? You still want that? And more than one, too?” 

“Someday,” she said airily, “But not yet. We haven’t taken the photos, after all.” 

“What a woman,” he said, his voice nearly a growl as he pulled her to him and bent his head to kiss the part in her auburn hair. “Your bosses don’t know this is what you borrowed the camera for, right?” 

She snorted. “Of course not!”

“Good,” Jack murmured, his hands dropping from hers to trace the curves of her body. “They’d want copies, an’ I can’t allow that. You’re mine, you hear?”

“I know,” she soothed, laying a hand on his cheek and stroking her thumb across his afternoon stubble. “All yours, and only yours. I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you, Jack, and I swear I never will. Not ever.” 

“Ace,” he rumbled, bending to capture her lips. “I love ya. More’n a press loves ink, more’n the sea loves salt, more’n a poet loves words.” 

“That’s a lot,” she said, kissing him back fervently. “You sure you love me that much?”

“I’m sure,” he breathed, nosing at her neck and kissing his way down. “I’m sure, I’m sure, I’m sure. All yours, and only yours. Forever.”

“That’s my Jack,” she cooed, and twisted slightly away from him to find the cord to the camera. “Alright, then, here’s how this will work…”  


	20. Punk!Davey, Part 4 (Davey/Chaya, Modern AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chaya is sad, Davey comes through.
> 
> tw: parental death mention, cancer mention

She stares down at the envelope in her hands and wishes she’d checked the mail the day before. Or that Becca had. Or that their father had. Or maybe that the postal service could have... lost it? Delayed it? Something like that.  

 _Someone ought to make a no-mailing list for dead people,_ she thinks, a niggling headache starting to form at the base of her skull. _Or at least make sure you don’t get mail for your dead mother on Mother’s Day._

She steps back into the house and hears her sister rattling around in the kitchen. “Anything good?” Becca calls, opening the fridge.

She looks down at the envelope in her hand—it’s junk mail, of course. It’s been over a year, so by now anyone who might have written knows not to. She runs her finger across her mother’s name and drafts a response to Becca. _Just a cancer fundraising thing,_ she thinks of saying. _You know, for the kind that killed Mom? The kind you and I might get, because it’s partly genetic? Yeah, that kind. Mhmm. Pass the milk?_

“No, nothing good,” she says, and tosses the envelope into the recycling bin.

“Bummer,” Becca says, sticking a frozen waffle into the microwave. She punches the time in and hunches over to watch the food spin. “I was expecting a package.”

“Oh?”

Becca nods. “Mini clothespins. Like, the crafting kind? I want to make one of those cute photo collages.”

“Nice,” Chaya says, and steals a raisin out of Becca’s bowl of granola. Her phone buzzes as she does so, and Becca raises an eyebrow.

“Remember to stay off social media today, okay?”

“For sure,” Chaya nods, thumb already swiping over the lock screen and opening up the text. 

_David (8:10): Thinking of you today. I’m going to call at 2. Answer if you want to talk, don’t if you don’t. I’m around._

Chaya’s expression lightens, and she’s just about to set the phone down when it buzzes again.

_David (8:13): I don’t know how to say this right, but I want to say it, so Im going to try. You mean a lot to me, Chayele. Really. So much. I hope you know that._

_David (8:14): I’m here for you if you need me._

She smiles and types out a reply. 

_Chaya (8:15): You said it all exactly right, and I don’t know if I’ll manage to do the same, but… well, here goes._

_Chaya (8:15): David, I am so grateful for you. More grateful than you’ll ever know. Thank you._


	21. Modern Era, Jack Kelly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack feels unloved and left out. 
> 
> In response to Pigeon's prompt request to pick any character(s) and use the line “Oh, yeah? Well, I have light-up shoes!"

Jack was lying on his couch, clicking through his friends’ Instagram stories, switching between that and Snapchat and growing ever-more morose.

Why hadn’t he been invited to any of these things?

Why hadn’t he even  _heard_  about any of these things?

It wasn’t that he thought his friends had to include him in everything, because he didn’t, not at all. After all, he certainly didn’t invite all of them to everything  _he_  did, and sometimes you wanted one friend for one kind of thing and another for something else—Race was the kind of high-energy guy you wanted for laser-tag, but his motormouth made him terrible company at the movies, whereas Specs wasn’t competitive enough to be fun at the arcade but was always up for braving the municipal pool.

But surely  _someone_  ought to include him in  _something,_  right?

He sighed to see a post with a row of beaming faces—it looked like Crutchie, JoJo, Elmer, Sniper, and Smalls had gone to a Mets game without him (although Jack couldn’t actually be upset about that, given how often he reminded his friends that he wouldn’t be caught dead cheering for the Mets). He opened Katherine’s Instagram story and moped over her cheery (virgin) mimosa boomerang from the brunch she had with her church friends every week. He tapped to like the photo that Les had posted to Davey’s account where Les and Henry’s youngest brother were grinning in front of a sleeping David, who had a mountain of tiny craft pom-poms piled on top of his head. He finally lost it over Race’s Snapchat, which was a clip of Albert and Mush with Race’s voice in the background yelling, “Best crew everrrrr! These guys are the coolest! That’s right, that’s right, gonna get liiiiiit!”

Jack scowled down at his phone.  **“Oh, yeah? Well, I have light-up shoes!** Who’s lit now, punk?”

The video clip ended and Jack grimaced. Come on, Jack. That was not the sort of thing that a lit person would say. Not the sort of thing a person with friends would say, either. Ugh. He dangled his arm off the couch, letting his phone slip through his fingers and thud onto the floor. He’d grown up in this city and he  _still_  couldn’t find anyone who wanted to spend time with him—what kind of sad sack annoying loser was he, anyway?

A big one. A big, obnoxious, self-absorbed, boring, ugly loser who meant nothing to anyone, who wasn’t worth telling your plans to, who’d actually been  _uninvited_  from Spot’s Sunday Cards Against Humanity tournament (well, okay, Spot had just put it on hold for the summer, but same difference)….

Not that he blamed his friends for the lack of friendship (although obviously he did)—if Jack were in their shoes, he wouldn’t have invited himself, either. He was needy and slutty and sorely lacking in the self-esteem department. He had a sharp tongue and took things too far and was always running late. He was—

_ping_

With a herculean effort, he lifted his phone up to read the message on the screen.

_Miss Medda (1:42): Hey honey! It’s been awhile, and I need the latest scoop on my best boy! I’d like to invite you over for dinner at 7pm tonight, Tuesday, or Friday. So just tell me which day, bring your sweet self on over, and catch me up on everything! Can’t wait to see you!_

Huh. Well. Maybe he had friends after all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Could obviously be in the Scars AU, probably the summer after Jack graduates college


	22. Modern Era, Jack/Kath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scars AU. Katherine's depressed and texts Jack.

Katherine’s roommate rolled over and murmured, causing Katherine to pull her own sheets up to hide the glow from her cellphone. She could’ve been doing this out in the living room, sure, but she was _trying_ to go to bed at a reasonable hour—well, she _had_ been trying, anyway. She’d missed the “reasonable” window ages ago and was now firmly into “night owl” territory. In fact, by this point she was rapidly approaching “four or five time zones in the wrong direction,” which would leave her grumpy and aching all the next day, but… she couldn’t help it.

There was something wrong with her, there had to be—her roommate was fast asleep, had been for hours, and here Katherine was, scrolling job ads for things she had no intention of applying to simply because she couldn’t stand the idea of being rejected from them, hating herself for every minute that she spent staring at her phone rather than sleeping, wishing tomorrow just… wouldn’t come. 

Not that she wanted to be stuck in this feeling forever, but the prospect of waking up—or being up—and having to do this again, and again, and again…

_The Only Decent Pulitzer (4:12): The lion’s face in this pic just kills me_

_Jack (4:45): lol p funny_

_Jack (4:45): hope ur asleep now tho_

_The Only Decent Pulitzer (4:45): No_

_Jack (4:45): K. Its late. Go to bed_

_The Only Decent Pulitzer (4:46): Lots of lions on the internet._

_Jack (4:46): bed_

_The Only Decent Pulitzer (4:46): You’re one to talk. Pot, meet kettle._

_Jack (4:47): im done for the semester, i can do what I want_

_The Only Decent Pulitzer (4:47): Class doesn’t end until next Friday!_

_Jack (4:47): yeah whatever i have a job i don’t care anymore_

_Jack (4:47): im gonna stick it to the man_

_The Only Decent Pulitzer (4:48): By not showing up to classes you paid for?_

_Jack (4:48): scholarships babyyyyyy_

_The Only Decent Pulitzer (4:48): Wasting taxpayer money_

_Jack (4:49): i am a taxpayer, so im just spending what i paid on me not going to class_

_The Only Decent Pulitzer (4:50): So you DID pay for these classes you’re skipping!_

_Jack (4:50): damn_

_Jack (4:50): i dont like arguing w you_

_Jack (4:50): its hard to win_

_The Only Decent Pulitzer (4:50): Victory is mine_

_Jack (4:51): ok bedtime now_

_The Only Decent Pulitzer (4:51): But there are lions to laugh at_

_Jack (4:52): they will wait for u_

_Jack (4:52): they arnt going anywhere_

_Jack (4:52): the internet will still be there inthe morning_

_Jack (4:52): hey K gues wht m falin aslep_

_The Only Decent Pulitzer (4:52): I can tell by your spelling_

_Jack (4:53): m_

_Jack (4:53): mmmmmmm_

_The Only Decent Pulitzer (4:54): Did you fall asleep on your phone_

_The Only Decent Pulitzer (5:10): I guess so_

 

_The Only Decent Pulitzer (5:45): Jack, I hate myself_

_The Only Decent Pulitzer (5:46): Why can’t I be normal like a normal person and just go to bed like a *normal* *person*_

_The Only Decent Pulitzer (5:47): I wish I were, I wish I could, but my brain won’t shut off and I can’t make myself close my eyes and just sleep like a NORMAL PERSON_

_The Only Decent Pulitzer (5:48): I’m so scared of graduating, I can’t stop thinking about what happens next and it’s terrifying because I don’t KNOW what happens next, from here on out it’s not planned anymore and I’m used to always having a road map and a plan and there isn’t one now and what am I supposed to do I’m good at SCHOOL I’m not good at work! I’ve never been hired for a job in my life!!!! Internships okay yes blah blah blah but like not a real job I can’t do this I just can’t_

_The Only Decent Pulitzer (5:49): I can’t_

_The Only Decent Pulitzer (5:52): Haha, just kidding! Sleep deprivation! Sorry!!!! Ignore, please!!!!! !!!!_

 

_Jack (15:31): just wokr up sry_

_Jack (15:31): Pulitzer? U awake?_

_Jack (15:33): I know youre awake, u have class_

_Jack (15:34): I also know your actually scared, but u don’t need to be, youll get a job_

_Jack (15:35): u gonna respond or wht???_

_Jack (15:44): uh huh. Nice try, K._

_Jack (15:45): but unlucky for u: im not letting u off the hook that easy we r gonna talk ab this frekout until u feel beter_

_Jack (15:46): aka guess what_

_Jack (15:46): im comin over_

_Jack (15:47): so u better be dressed_

_Jack (15:47): or not >:) hehe _

_Jack (15:47): see you soon_


	23. Modern Era, Davey/Chaya.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chaya breaks up with Davey. Davey doesn't know why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the modern D/C, so Chaya's still grieving her mother's recent death. Please don't read if that's going to be upsetting for you.
> 
> Also Davey curses. 
> 
> Also also, just a note that I'm not writing this to endorse one way of handling grief over any other way of handling grief. Aside from the blanket truth that handling grief in self-destructive or other destructive ways is definitely a suboptimal choice, there's no right way to get through this stuff. Grief is extremely individualized, and so are people, so there's not going to be a one-size-fits-all. Chaya's doing her best, but she doesn't have all the answers, and neither does Davey. What works for them --or what they *think* will work for them-- isn't an instruction manual, it's just me writing one possibility for how these characters might work through the situation I've stuck them in.

David leaned in to give her a goodnight kiss, and she made sure to take notes on everything she felt, everything he did—the gentle press of his lips against hers, the light weight of his hand on her hip, the moment her eyes closed and her focus narrowed. Normally she let herself drift at times like this; normally this was one of the rare situations that switched off the analytical, alert, constant hum in her head. Not tonight, though. Tonight she was keyed up and attuned to his every motion, to the heat of his skin and the soft cotton of his shirt. She couldn’t let herself float away, get lost in him the way she wanted to—no. Not now. Not tonight. Tonight she had to pay attention. Tonight –right here, right now– was going to be their last kiss. 

She sighed as he pulled away, and he smiled, mistaking her regret for contentment. 

“See you tomorrow?” He asked/not-asked, meaning the question as a mere formality.

“I’m breaking up with you,” she said, looking him straight in the eye.

He took a step backwards and threw his right arm out as if for balance, but he was standing in the hallway and there was nothing to hold onto. “What?”

“I am ending the romantic part of our relationship,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself and hugging tightly, pressing the heel of her hand into her ribcage. “I’m happy to still be friends, but we can’t date anymore. It’s over.”

He squeezed his eyes shut for a few seconds, reopened them, and blinked. “What?” 

“I’ve expressed myself clearly. I’ll give you time to process on your own.” She gave him a nod and fumbled for her keys. “Goodnight, David.”

Davey’s hand shot out to grab her wrist. “No,” he said fiercely, “You haven’t been clear at all. What on earth is going on? What do you mean, you’re breaking up with me? _Why?”_

“It’s what’s best for you,” she said, twisting her wrist and breaking his grip. “Being with me is…” she shook her head. She’d assumed he’d want an explanation, but she’d hoped she would be able to escape her apartment before he asked for it. “Surely you see it?” She pleaded, looking back up at him, wanting him to fill in the words she hadn’t said.

“No, Chaya,” he said darkly. “I don’t see a damn thing. Enlighten me, please, because this doesn’t make a lick of sense. I thought things were going well. You certainly seemed to enjoy that kiss just now. Hell, tonight you seemed happier than you have in ages, and—” his eyes widened. “Oh my gosh, were you happy because you’ve been planning this? Is dating me so awful that the thought of breaking up with me made you _happy?”_

“No!” She said, before she could stop herself. He’d given her the perfect out, dammit, and yet her stupid brain wouldn’t let her lie. She had to break up with him, yes, but she had to be honest about it. She couldn’t lie about something so important. Not unless it was by omission, and she’d just whiffed on her best chance to do that.

David raised an eyebrow.

“No, I…” she bit her lip. “I really did have fun tonight. I wasn’t happy about breaking up with you—I was happy _for_ you, knowing that you—” she felt her eyes prickle and quickly dropped her head to stare at the pavement.

“That I what?” He demanded, taking a step closer to her.

“That you’d be rid of me soon,” she said, cursing her voice for wobbling.

“ _Rid_ of you?” Davey threw up his hands. “What the fuck is going on with you? What is—what could you possibly—you think I see you as a trash bag to—to just toss by the curb or something?”

She shook her head. “No, you don’t, and that’s why _I’m_ having to break up with _you,_ ” she said, figuring he’d start following along soon enough. He was brilliant—surely he’d get what she meant. 

He didn’t.

“Look, Chaya,” he said, unconsciously running his thumb back and forth across his fingernails. “None of this makes any sense to me at all. You enjoyed spending time with me, so you want to do less of it; you’re unhappy about breaking up with me, so you insist on doing exactly that; you know I think highly of you and are… upset with me for that? For liking you? For…” He made an incomprehensible noise and gestured back and forth between the two of them. “What are you—what is going on here?”

“Your life would be better if you weren’t shackled to me!”

“Shackled, huh?” His voice was dry. “What, like I’m a POW or something? A casualty of your wily feminine charms?” He snorted and crossed his arms. “That seems a little dramatic, don’t you think?”

“You don’t need to be cruel about it!” She snapped, feeling the tears well. “You don’t have to _laugh_ at me!”

“It’s hard not to laugh at something so ridiculous,” He shot back. “This is completely illogical, Chaya. Just—” He waved his hand. “It’s nonsensical bullshit. You don’t want to break up with me, and I don’t want you to break up with me, so we’re not breaking up. Okay?” 

“No!” She tightened the press of her arms and backed up against her apartment door, the keys still dangling from her hand. “No. We’re breaking up. I don’t need your permission—I can do this all on my own. Unilateral decision. We’re done, David. It’s over. Go home.” She turned her back to him and tried repeatedly to jam the wrong key into her lock.

“No,” he said, grabbing roughly at her arm. “I’m not leaving until you explain.” He tried to force her around to face him, but she kept her body angled away before finally, _finally_ fitting the right key in place and half-stumbling inside. 

“Go home,” she ordered, the tears finally spilling over. She hated her body for doing that, for allowing him to think she was feeling anything but fury. Even if she was feeling more than that—even if she was feeling nothing at all—she didn’t want him assuming. But he was. He always was. That was part of the problem—he was constantly assuming he knew how she felt when even she wasn’t sure how she felt, and—“And these tears are because I’m angry, not because I’m sad!” She glared at him and watched him take a step back in confusion. “Go away, David. I don’t want you here.”

He opened his mouth again, but she closed the door in his face, sliding the deadbolt across for good measure. She was worried that even this wouldn’t be enough, that he’d try to argue through the door, but she didn’t hear so much as a cough from the hallway. Slowly, she raised her eye to the peephole. He was still there, but he was silent. She saw his jaw clench and his eyes narrow, saw him step to the door, saw him raise a fist to knock, pause, and shake his head. Saw him walk away. 

She waited until she was absolutely sure he’d left the building before collapsing to the floor and crying until her chest hurt.

He called first. She knew he would, knew he’d want to talk, knew he’d want to dissect the corpse of their relationship and see if maybe there was something salvageable left in the bloody mess she’d made of it. Honestly, she was surprised that he’d held out for twenty-four hours; she’d expected him to cave after ten. She let it go to voicemail. He didn’t leave a message.

He left her alone the rest of the week, even going so far as to switch to a seat on the opposite side of the room in their linear modeling class. He didn’t text or try to catch her after lab, he didn’t make eye contact with her when Dylan asked a stupid question, he didn’t show up at her door with flowers or a cupcake or a tentative smile. So, stupidly, _stupidly_ , she thought he’d accepted it. She thought she’d won. And so she messaged him.

 _Chaya (9:40): Hey! We good? Platonic coffee this afternoon?_  

She knew it was a risk, but she couldn’t help it. She missed him. Her stomachache was back with a vengeance, she hadn’t spoken to anyone for longer than five minutes since their breakup argument, and she didn’t even want to think about how much time she’d wasted this past week just lying on the floor watching _The Flash_. It wasn’t even a good show, because it was just the same storyline over and over, and the characters— _ping!_

_David (9:41): Yes. Coffee this afternoon. See you at Macky Otto at 2 unless I hear otherwise._

Determined to reinforce that this wasn’t a date, that she wouldn’t be apologizing, she forewent washing her hair in favor of pulling it into a scrunchie and letting it frizz. She wore a camp t-shirt from home, the ugly neon yellow one with “Beber Camp!” in all caps across the front, and slipped into a pair of too-big jeans. She’d wanted to arrive before he did, to settle in and buy her drink before he showed up and forced the awkward “who’s paying for this now” dance, but no luck. Both of them were habitually early to everything, and showing up earlier than another early bird is never easy. They entered at the same time, found a small corner table in the back, and were sitting across from each other by 1:45.

“So, how was your week?” She asked brightly, knowing her fake enthusiasm wouldn’t fool him. 

“I deserve an explanation,” he said, voice stony. “Tell me why you ended things.” 

She shook her head. “No. I don’t want to. It hurts.” 

Davey snorted and leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, well, that pain is self-inflicted, so forgive me if I’m not overflowing with sympathy here. I need to know what happened, Chaya, and I need you to tell me.” 

She ran her index finger around the rim of her coffee cup. “Can’t we just leave it be?” Her eyes darted over to the corner of the room, landing on the creaky wooden cabinet that was stocked with board games. She brightened. “No one’s using Scrabble; we could play a lightning round.” 

“Stop trying to get out of this. You blindsided me, and if I don’t get an explanation, it’s going to make me paranoid in my next relationship,” he said. She felt a pang of remorse, knowing that this wasn’t a guilt-trip; it was the truth.

Davey’s gaze bored into her. “I need to know why you broke things off when things were going really well—from my perspective, at least—so that I know what went wrong and am not constantly second-guessing everything for the next five years.” His nostrils flared, and he gripped the armrest of the chair. “Okay, Chaya? Does that make sense to you?” 

She nodded, chastened. 

“Good. So. You need to tell me. Talk.”

 “I…” She stared down at her cappuccino, noting that the crisp edges of the barista’s latté art had softened and sunk. “I’m making you sad.” 

He barked a laugh. “Yeah, you are.” 

“No, I don’t mean _now_ ,” she said, jerking her head up to face him. “I mean that dating me—being my person, my go-to guy for so many things—it’s got to be weighing on you. I’m trying my best to function like a fairly normal human being, but I know we don’t go out much or do things in groups or watch certain movies or—well, I’m just…” She rubbed a knuckle into the corner of her right eye. “I’m so limp, David. All the time. It’s like I’m a damp dishrag that just flops where you put it. It’s a good thing I don’t have any morning classes this term, because hauling myself out of bed before noon is almost impossible, and I… I do a decent job of hiding it, I think, but I just…”

“No, I’ve noticed,” he put in quietly. “I know you’re struggling.”

She gave a short burst of laughter. “Yeah,” she said, her tone dry. “I know you’ve noticed. That’s why I broke up with you. I’m dragging you down with me, and I can’t do that to you. I can’t have that on my conscience. I’ve got enough to feel bad about as-is; I don’t want to add you to that.” 

David’s forehead crinkled. “You’re not responsible for my happiness, you know.” 

She frowned. “Well, I sort of am—I mean, we spend a lot of time together, and I know depression isn’t some contagious disease or anything, but… it’s hard not to soak up the emotions of the people around you, right? And the emotions you’re getting from me aren’t… they’re not good. Grad school is hard enough without trying to carry the weight of a grieving girlfriend.”

“You make it sound like you’re this overwhelming burden on me,” Davey observed, crossing his arms. “I’m not some fragile hothouse plant; I’m not going to wilt just because you’re feeling bad for a little while.”

“I know,” she said faintly, looking down at her lap, smoothing her hand over the worn denim. “But I don’t think it’s going to be for just a little while. I think it’s going to be for a very long time, and I… I don’t want to drag you through that.”

His eyebrows pulled together in confusion, and she sighed, knowing he needed more detail. “Look, David. I can’t make you happy. Heck, I can’t even make _myself_ happy.” She shook her head. “And that’s… I mean… I don’t think it’s temporary. I don’t know that I’ll ever be happy again. The mere _idea_ of being happy again, it… it feels like…” She rubbed at her wrist. “It just feels so wrong! It feels like…” She shook her head rapidly. “No. I just can’t do it. Being happy isn’t an option for me anymore. Maybe I’ll be able to be happy in a couple of years— _maybe_ —but… maybe not. And that’s why we have to stop dating, okay?”

David looked more confused than ever, and she leaned forwards, willing him to understand. “I’m not capable of happiness anymore, David. And I’ve made peace with that for myself, but not for you. So we have to break up. I have to let you go. I can’t bring you down with me. I won’t.”

She thought she’d explained herself quite well, but he looked even angrier than he had at the start of their conversation. His eyes flashed. “Let me get this straight. You broke up with me because you think I’m incapable of processing my own emotions and handling them in a healthy way?” 

She blinked. “What? I never said that.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on. You think you know what’s best for me, so you’re making executive decisions about my mental health that I _never asked you to make._ ”

“I—” 

He raised an eyebrow.

“That’s not what I meant!” 

“But it’s still what you’re doing,” he said, his voice cold. “You don’t trust me to tell you when I’m having a bad day and can’t listen to you right then, you don’t trust me to take care of myself, you don’t trust me to be patient and stick with you through the worst of this. You think I’m incapable of being a fucking adult and just communicating with you about my needs, and so you think you’ve got to _protect_ me. But from what, Chaya? From sadness? From supporting you? From—from being with you? I don’t even know, Chaya. I don’t—”

“I’m not protecting _you_ ,” she burst out, surprising even herself. “I’m protecting _me!”_

Davey’s jaw snapped shut. They sat in silence for several seconds, both of them blushing at having attracted the attention of the rest of the coffee shop. David looked down at the table until the other patrons drifted back to their own conversations, and then he spoke, his voice low and steady. “Can you explain that, please?”

“I…” She swallowed. “I can’t lose anyone else right now, David. I couldn’t bear it. I’m no fun to be around right now, and I don’t have the energy to invest in you the way I want to, and I can’t carry your emotional burdens the way I normally would, and… you’re going to break up with me. You’re going to leave. And I can’t handle that, not on the heels of my mom. I can’t. I just can’t.” 

She picked up her wooden coffee stirrer and destroyed what was left of the steamed milk rosette. “So if we keep dating… Well, it’s really not fair to you. You’re not getting the best version of me, and at some point you’re going to feel trapped because you’ll want to break up with me, but you’ll feel like you can’t because you know how hard that would be for me, and you won’t want to hurt me when I’m already feeling so low, and then you’ll resent me for keeping you in a relationship you don’t want, and I…” She sighed. “I can’t be worrying about all of that right now. I can’t be worrying about _you_.”

“I’m not asking you to,” Davey said, leaning in.

“No, but it’s part of being with someone,” she said slowly, testing out the words, making sure they were the right ones. “Caring about them enough to worry about them. Wanting to help them. Trying to make life better for them instead of just... leeching them dry.” Davey opened his mouth to speak again, but Chaya cut him off. “Look, David. Keeping myself together is about all I can manage right now. I can make myself seem normal, check in on Becca and Dad, and keep going to class, but that’s really it. I don’t have the energy to do anything for you. I’ve got nothing left.” 

Davey pursed his lips. “I mean… I’m okay with that. I just like being with you—you don’t have to do stuff for me.”

“I don’t mean it in the sense of ‘Hey, I’m not going to do your laundry,’” she said, a smile playing around her eyes. “I don’t care how much energy I have or how good I feel—you’re responsible for your own dirty clothes, mister.” Davey laughed, and Chaya’s smile broke through.

“But,” she said, sobering again, “I want to be able to make plans with you and then follow through on them. I want to be able to listen to you when you have a bad day. I want to cook you dinner every now and then, and I want to clean the dishes when you cook for me. But right now I can’t do any of that. Right now all I can do is get from one day to the next, and I will be wracked with guilt over that if we keep dating.” 

David frowned. “But what if I don’t want any of that?”

She snorted. “Then you want a truly sucky relationship, my friend.” 

He burst out laughing. "Fair point." 

“Seriously, though,” she said, her tone wistful. “I want to be in a relationship with you, David. I really do. But as much as I want that, I also know it’s something I can’t have right now. I need to focus on making it to tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, not on feeling guilty for neglecting and using you. And I know you’ve said you’re okay with how things are, but I’m not. I feel like I’m sucking you dry. No, listen,” she said, cutting off his splutter, “Even if _you_ don’t feel that that’s what I’m doing, _I_ do.” She paused and fiddled with her paper napkin. “It doesn’t matter how much we talk about it, either—I know myself, and I know I’ll keep feeling guilty, and I just… I can’t handle that extra guilt right now.”

David sighed and scrubbed his face. “I hate that you’ve started making sense again.” 

She grinned, and he ventured a smile back.

“So does that mean you’re okay with this?” She asked, feeling hopeful.

“I’m still upset that you didn’t explain it from the get-go,” he said. “You could’ve trusted me to listen and understand, you know.”

She had the decency to look abashed. “I’m sorry, David. I owe you an apology for that. I… I think I just got scared you’d say no,” she said, her voice hesitant. “I was so scared to do this, and I couldn’t stand the idea of telling you and then arguing about the real reason, because I… People don’t always listen to me when I talk. They pretend to, and then they go and do the exact thing I said I didn’t want.”   

Davey leaned in even farther. “I will do my best not to do that to you,” he promised. “I don’t ever want to steamroll you. And if I do, I hope you’ll tell me.”

Her face cleared. “You’re still going to spend time with me? You’re okay with being just friends?”

“Yes to both of those questions,” he said, smiling gently. “We kind of have to be friends, right? After all, this is a platonic coffee date, and I think a mutual friendship is necessary in order for that to happen.” 

Her eyes sparkled. “Are you going to look up Webster’s definition for platonic?”

“I just might,” he said loftily. “I pride myself on my definitional clarity.”

Chaya laughed, and then she reached across the table, slowly, tentatively, to lay her hand on his. “Thank you,” she said, trying to impress upon him just how sincerely she meant that. “Thank you for understanding. For not pushing.” 

“Of course,” he said gravely, laying his other hand on top of hers. “I will never push you to do something that would hurt you. I’m grateful to have you in my life, and I don’t ever want to jeopardize that.” 

She smiled and looked towards the shelf of board games again. “So we’ll still be friends even after I smear you in Scrabble?”

“Oh, well, I don’t think I’m going to give you the opportunity to find out,” he said, standing up to go get the game. “I think I’ll smear you instead, just to be safe.” 

“You’re on.”


End file.
